Skip to main content
Salad

Hot Slaw

A hot cabbage slaw made with boiling water, flour, butter, pepper, vinegar, and salt.

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

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the shredded cabbage and boiling water.

  2. Add the flour and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the butter, pepper, and vinegar or mustard.

  4. Season with salt 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the bulk of the dish and its body as it softens while cooking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the slaw becomes lightly saucy rather than watery.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished slaw.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Add the flour and boil for 15 minutes. Flour must be fully boiled to thicken the liquid and cook out its raw starchy taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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.

More hot slaw recipes

Dressing 3 See all 87 →

You might also like

Cabbage DressingCabbage Dressing9 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipes