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Hot Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with a hot vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, pepper, and salt mixture, finished with sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Combine vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the shredded cabbage.

  2. Return the cabbage to the saucepan and stir until heated through.

  3. Remove from heat, stir in sour cream, and transfer to a covered dish.

  4. Set the dish in hot water for 10 minutes 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. 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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, once heated in the dressing, softens into a tender texture.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the slaw's tangy flavor.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a creamy body to the warm dressing.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour cream off the heat. Sour cream can curdle or separate when exposed to high heat, so it should be stirred in after the mixture is removed from the heat to keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, sugar, cream, mustard, pepper. 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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