Name: Cold Slaw with Cold Dressing
Ingredients: 1 small head of cabbage, shredded finely; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon mustard; 2 tablespoons white sugar; ½ cup sour cream; ¼ cup vinegar; ¼ teaspoon salt; Additional sugar to taste

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 ↓

Cold Slaw with Cold Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Shred the cabbage finely or chop it in a chopping bowl.

Make and combine

In a separate bowl, mix together black pepper, mustard, white sugar, sour cream, vinegar, and salt.
Pour the dressing over the shredded cabbage and mix well.
Adjust sweetness with more sugar if desired.

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.

Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 provides its crisp, crunchy texture.
Sour cream: Adds creaminess and body to the dressing, coating the cabbage.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
White sugar: Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.

Swap the cabbage

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

Horseradishfits better
Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, sugar, cream, 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.