Skip to main content
Main

Hot Slaw

A cabbage dish cooked in hot water, then finished with milk, butter, flour, and optional egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the shaved cabbage in a pot and cover with hot water.

  2. Cook until tender, then drain.

  3. Stir in the milk, salt, and pepper.

  4. In a separate bowl, rub the flour into the butter until smooth, then stir into the cabbage mixture.

  5. If using, beat in the egg instead of the flour.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender when cooked in hot water.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened sauce.
Flour
Thickens the mixture with the butter, giving the slaw a creamy, binding texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, combining with the flour and butter into a smooth sauce.
Egg
Optionally replaces the flour as a binder that thickens and enriches the mixture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the flour into the butter until smooth. Flour lumps form if it is added without being fully blended with the fat first. Working the flour into the butter coats the starch grains so they disperse evenly when stirred into the hot cabbage, producing a smooth, thickened texture instead of clumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, butter, flour, 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.

More hot slaw recipes

Dressing 3 See all 87 →

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes