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Cold Slaw

A cold cabbage slaw made with vinegar, egg, butter, mustard, and cream, left to sit for at least two days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Mustard and cabbage 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 vinegar dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, egg, sugar, salt, mustard, and butter in a saucepan and stir until it boils.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then pour it over finely shaved cabbage in a small jar.

  3. Sprinkle the cabbage with salt and pepper to taste.

Make the cream dressing

  1. In another saucepan, heat 1 cup of vinegar with a walnut-sized piece of butter and 1 tablespoon of sugar until it boils.

  2. Mix a well-beaten egg with 1 cup of cream and pour it into the boiling vinegar mixture, stirring briskly until it boils again.

Pack and rest

  1. Pour this mixture over the cabbage and cover tightly, pressing down with a weight or plate.

  2. Let the slaw sit for at least 2 days for best flavor; it can be eaten immediately or after a week if kept cool.

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. Mustard + cabbagetop 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and absorbs the dressing as it softens.
Egg
Thickens the cooked dressing so it clings to the cabbage.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the slaw and keeps it tangy.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, rounder dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the boiling vinegar. Egg proteins set when heated, so the egg and cream mixture must be stirred briskly as it goes in. Otherwise the egg can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, thickened dressing.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, sugar, mustard, butter, pepper, cream. 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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