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Hot Slaw

A cabbage slaw served hot with a mustard‑butter‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Hot 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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce base

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, mustard, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Shave the cabbage finely and place it in a pot with enough salted water to cover.

  2. Cook the cabbage until tender, then drain.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until combined.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

  3. Combine the thickened sauce with the cabbage and serve hot.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add richness and help bind the sauce together when heated.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that thickens with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps with its smooth texture.
Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, butter, sugar, pepper, milk, flour. 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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