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Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a hot vinegar‑butter‑egg‑cream mixture.

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

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage very fine.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar and butter until boiling.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg and sweet cream.

  3. Season with salt, mustard, pepper, and sugar.

Combine

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the shredded cabbage.

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. 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 dish; finely shredding it gives a tender, easy-to-eat texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavor.
Beaten egg
Thickens the hot dressing as it cooks, giving it a creamy body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg into the hot mixture gently. Adding the beaten egg to very hot liquid without stirring can scramble it into lumps. Removing the pan from heat first and stirring steadily lets the egg thicken the dressing smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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