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Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a hot vinegar, mustard, sugar, butter, egg, celery seed mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Shave the cabbage finely.

  2. Let the cabbage sit for 2 hours before serving.

Make the dressing

  1. Combine the vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Beat the eggs.

  4. Stir the beaten eggs into the boiling mixture.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Stir in the celery seed.

Combine and chill

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the cabbage.

  2. Mix the slaw well.

  3. Place the slaw in a cool place or on ice before serving.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 slaw and provides the crisp texture.
Eggs
Thicken the hot dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that flavours and balances the slaw.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten eggs into the boiling mixture. Adding hot liquid to eggs too quickly, or letting them boil, can scramble them. Stirring steadily as the eggs are added keeps the dressing smooth and lets the egg proteins thicken it evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, sugar, walnut, butter, egg, celery. 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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