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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with a dressing of eggs, butter, vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, and salt.

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

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cabbage thoroughly and cut it into very fine pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs, butter, vinegar, pepper, salt, mustard, and sugar to make the dressing.

  3. Allow the dressing to cool before adding it to the cabbage.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix the dressing well with the cabbage 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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, fresh texture.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cool the dressing before adding it to the cabbage. A hot egg-based dressing can continue to cook and curdle or thin, and warm dressing wilts the cabbage. Letting it cool keeps the dressing smooth and the slaw crisp.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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