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Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with a creamy egg and butter dressing.

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

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Cut the cabbage very fine and place it in an earthen bowl.

  2. Boil the vinegar.

  3. Beat the eggs until light.

  4. Add the cream and butter.

  5. Add the boiling vinegar to the egg mixture.

  6. Stir over heat until boiling hot.

  7. Add the salt and pepper.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the mixture over the cabbage.

  2. Chill until very cold 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing when heated, giving it a creamy, smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the slaw its tangy flavor and cuts the richness.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base that the warm dressing coats and softens slightly.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until boiling hot. Eggs thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they curdle and turn grainy. Stir constantly and heat gently until the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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