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Hot Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with hot vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, salt, pepper, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Hot Slaw

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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Shred the cabbage finely and place it in a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar until hot.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper to the hot vinegar and mix well.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the shredded cabbage and heat until scalding.

  2. Transfer the cabbage to a deep dish and quickly stir in the sour cream.

  3. Cover and set the dish in hot water for 10 minutes 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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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 absorbs the warm dressing, becoming tender and wilted.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sugar and cuts through the richness.
Sour cream
Adds creamy richness and a mild tang to the warm dressed cabbage.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, smoother mouthfeel in the warm dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour cream quickly. Sour cream is a dairy emulsion that can curdle or separate when exposed to high heat for long. Adding it to the hot cabbage promptly and stirring fast keeps it smooth, and the cabbage should not be overheated afterward.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, cream. 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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