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Salad

Sour Cream Slaw

A chilled cabbage slaw mixed with sour cream, vinegar, and optional eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Sour Cream Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Slice the cabbage finely and soak it in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the cabbage and dry it with a towel.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar until hot.

  2. In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs (if using) with the sour cream.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot vinegar and stir until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, and mix with the cabbage.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

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.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the slaw.
Sour cream
Adds creamy richness and a tangy flavor to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the cream.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they heat with the vinegar.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot vinegar. If the eggs are added too quickly or the mixture is too hot, they can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Stirring steadily while adding the egg mixture gently heats the eggs so the dressing becomes smooth and thick.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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