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Hot Slaw

A hot cabbage slaw made with butter, flour, cider vinegar, mustard, eggs, and sweet 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. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Add the cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

  4. Heat the mixture until hot but do not boil.

  5. Beat the egg yolks with the sweet milk in a bowl.

  6. Stir the beaten mixture into the skillet.

  7. Stir until the egg thickens, but do not let it boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cut cabbage.

  2. Stir until heated through.

  3. 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 softens as it warms in the hot dressing.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the dressing as they gently cook, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the flavour of the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the butter and vinegar mixture so the dressing clings to the cabbage.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sweet milk
Dilutes the vinegar and adds creaminess to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture until it thickens, but do not let it boil. Egg proteins set and thicken the sauce when gently heated, but at boiling temperatures they curdle and turn grainy. Keeping the heat low and stirring constantly keeps the dressing smooth.

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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