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Cold Slaw with Cooked Dressing

A cold cabbage slaw topped with a vinegar-based cooked dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage 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 with Cooked Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, butter, flour, and sugar.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

Dress and chill

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the chopped or sliced cabbage.

  2. Cover closely and refrigerate until cold.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + cabbagetop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sugar and seasons the slaw.
Flour
Thickens the cooked dressing so it coats the cabbage instead of pooling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the vinegar's sharpness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the dressing.
Cabbage
Forms the body of the slaw, absorbing the warm dressing as it cools.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing until thickened. Flour needs to be cooked over medium heat until the mixture thickens, or the starch stays raw and the dressing stays thin and pasty. Pour it hot over the cabbage so it is absorbed evenly before chilling.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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