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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a boiled vinegar, sugar, butter, egg, and cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until boiling.

  3. Add beaten eggs and cream to the mixture, cooking until thickened.

Assemble the slaw

  1. Combine chopped cabbage and celery salt in a large bowl.

  2. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky base of the slaw.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the dressing's sharpness.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs and cream into the dressing. Egg proteins set when heated, so cooking over medium heat while stirring thickens the dressing smoothly. If it heats too fast, the eggs can scramble and turn lumpy.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, cream, butter, egg, cabbage):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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