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Cold Slaw

A cold sauce made from water, vinegar, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, mustard, flour, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cold Slaw

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mixture

  1. Combine water, salt, pepper, mustard, butter, sugar, and vinegar in a saucepan and boil the mixture.

  2. Add flour (or cornstarch) to the mixture and boil for ten minutes.

  3. Beat the eggs well.

  4. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the eggs.

  5. Return to the stove until it comes to a boil.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they set with heat and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs off the heat. Eggs can scramble and curdle if they meet a hot mixture directly. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring them in lets them blend in gently, and the mixture is brought back to a boil only afterward to thicken it.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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