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French Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with egg yolk, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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

French Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage as for other slaw.

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the oil to the mashed yolks.

  3. Pour in the vinegar and mix well.

  4. Add mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the cabbage and stir well.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  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

Hard-boiled eggs
Mashed yolks form a rich, emulsified base that thickens the dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavor through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps bind the oil and yolk mixture into an emulsion.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, fibrous body of the slaw that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil to the mashed yolks. Adding oil slowly while mixing lets it disperse into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk lecithin. Adding it all at once can split the dressing into a greasy, separated mixture.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard, 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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