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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with celery, horseradish, egg yolk dressing, oil, mustard, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the cut cabbage, chopped celery, and grated horseradish. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  2. In a separate bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks into a smooth paste. Mix in the oil, mustard, pepper, and vinegar until well combined.

Dress and serve

  1. Stir the dressing into the cabbage mixture a few moments 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into a smooth paste, they emulsify the oil and vinegar into a creamy dressing.
Oil
Adds richness and a silky texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the slaw and balances the richness of the oil.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the slaw that the dressing coats.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that gives the slaw its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing in just before serving. Vinegar and salt draw water out of cabbage over time, so the slaw turns limp and watery if dressed too early. Adding the dressing shortly before serving keeps the cabbage crisper.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, horseradish, egg, mustard, pepper, 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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