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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage slaw dressed with egg yolk, sugar, oil, cream, mustard, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine shaved cabbage with beaten egg yolks, sugar, olive oil or melted butter, thick cream, mustard, pepper, and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Heat the dressing mixture over low heat, stirring until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the thickened dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

  2. Let the slaw cool, then garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs on top.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set gently with heat, giving it a creamy body.
Shaved cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the slaw.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, coating texture to the dressing.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and softens the dressing's mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the mustard and seasoning.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing over low heat. Egg yolks begin to set around moderate heat and can scramble if the dressing gets too hot. Gentle heat with constant stirring thickens the custard-like sauce smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, olive, cream, mustard, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, olive, cream, mustard, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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