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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage slaw seasoned with salt, sugar, red pepper, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak tender cabbage leaves in cold salted water, then drain and chop finely.

  2. Let the chopped cabbage stand for 30 minutes, then squeeze out all moisture with your hands.

Dress the slaw

  1. Add a little sugar, red pepper, and cream to the cabbage.

  2. Mix well before slowly adding vinegar while stirring.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Tender cabbage leaves
Form the bulk of the slaw; salting and squeezing removes moisture so the slaw stays crisp.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy coating that softens the cabbage's sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the moisture. Cabbage holds a lot of water. If it is not squeezed well, the liquid thins the cream and dilutes the dressing, leaving the slaw watery and limp.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, vinegar, 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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