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Hot Slaw

A warm cabbage slaw cooked with butter, flour, cider vinegar, mustard, egg yolks, and milk.

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

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and mix in the flour; fry for 1 minute.

  2. Add the cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard; heat without boiling.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the milk and stir into the skillet; cook until thickened but do not boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cabbage and stir until heated through; then serve.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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 and wilts gently when warmed in the dressing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and with the flour forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that helps the dressing hold together.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing a sharp, tangy bite.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the egg mixture, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle when they get too hot. Heating them gently while stirring lets the proteins set into a smooth, thickened dressing instead of lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, egg. 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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