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Salad

Excellent Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a hot butter, vinegar, flour, and egg yolk mixture.

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

Excellent Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash the cabbage and drain it.

  2. Cut off the stalk.

  3. Shred the cabbage into very small pieces using a sharp knife.

  4. Place the shredded cabbage in a deep dish.

Make the dressing

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, butter, flour, salt, and cayenne, and stir well.

  2. Bring the mixture to a hard boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Combine and chill

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

  2. Cool the slaw on ice or in the open air until completely 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.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

Butter and flour 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

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and provides its crisp, fresh texture.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, mellow body.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the dressing as it heats, giving it body so it clings to the cabbage.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing, adding richness and a creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the hot dressing. Egg yolks set when heated, so if the dressing is too hot or boiled after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy. Removing the pan from heat first lets them thicken gently and smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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