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Salad

Warm Slaw

A warm cabbage slaw seasoned with butter, cream, mustard, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Warm Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour boiling water over the chopped cabbage and let it sit briefly.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the cream or milk.

  3. In a bowl, mix the pepper, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the hot cabbage and 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.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. 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 slaw and absorbs the warm dressing, becoming tender as it sits.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the dressing, softening the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the dish and balances the richness of the dairy.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the vinegar and cream.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the hot cabbage and serve. The cabbage should be hot when the dressing goes on, so it stays warm and softens slightly while the dressing coats it. Cooling cabbage before dressing leaves it stiff and makes the warm dressing set unevenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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