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Salad

Hot Slaw

A cabbage salad dressed with a hot sauce of egg yolk, butter, cream, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery seed, pepper, and salt.

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

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper 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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into small pieces with a sharp knife.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk and add the butter, cream, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and celery seed.

  2. Heat the mixture in a tin cup until hot.

Combine and serve

  1. Place the cabbage in an oven and pour the hot mixture over it.

  2. Stir until well mixed and the cabbage is slightly cooked.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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 dish and softens slightly when coated with the hot mixture.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the dressing and thickens it as it heats, giving it a creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sugar and fat.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard for a rounder flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing. The egg yolk can scramble if the hot mixture gets too hot or is heated too fast. Heating gently and stirring keeps it smooth and thickened, so it coats the cabbage evenly rather than turning grainy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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