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Salad

French Cold Slaw

A cold cabbage and onion slaw dressed with mustard, cayenne, egg, sugar, salt, butter, cream or milk, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cabbage and onions as finely as possible.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mustard, cayenne pepper, egg, sugar, salt, butter, cream or milk, and vinegar.

  2. Place on the stove and stir until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately after dressing the slaw.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

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

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 texture.
Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and gives it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing until it thickens. The egg proteins set as the mixture heats, thickening the dressing. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overheating can scramble the egg and make it grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, mustard, pepper, egg, sugar, butter, 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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