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Hot Slaw with Cabbage and Celery

A hot slaw made from shredded cabbage and celery, seasoned with butter, salt, red pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hot Slaw with Cabbage and Celery

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Shred the cabbage and celery.

  2. Stew the shredded vegetables until tender.

  3. Drain the vegetables and add butter, salt, red pepper, and vinegar.

  4. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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 becomes tender and sweet when stewed.
Celery
Adds crisp-tender texture and a mild savory, aromatic flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat coating to the cooked vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables before adding the seasonings. Excess cooking liquid would dilute the butter and vinegar and make the slaw watery, so the seasonings cling better when the vegetables are drained first.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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.

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