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Salad

Cold Slaw

Cold Slaw is a cabbage salad dressed with a flour, egg, vinegar, and water mixture.

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

Why it works: Cabbage and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the flour with the egg, then add the cold water and vinegar.

  2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat, stirring until it boils.

  3. Add salt to taste.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble

  1. Finely cut the cabbage.

  2. Pour the cooled mixture over the 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 + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 bulk of the slaw and provides its crisp texture.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cooked dressing so it clings to the cabbage.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind and thicken the dressing as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the dressing until it boils. Flour thickens only when heated enough to gelatinise its starch. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching, and the egg can curdle if overheated, so the mixture should be heated carefully until thickened.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, vinegar. 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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