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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a sweet and tangy milk-based sauce.

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

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 ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place chopped cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle with salt.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, butter, and sugar; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in beaten eggs, vinegar, cornstarch, and mustard.

Combine

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the cabbage and mix well.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and add richness to the slaw.
Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing so it clings to the cabbage instead of pooling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and sharpens the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to offset the vinegar's sharpness.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and provides crisp texture.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the hot milk mixture. If the eggs are added too quickly or the mixture is not stirred, they can scramble into lumps. Stirring steadily while the dressing is hot lets the egg proteins set smoothly and thicken the dressing evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, walnut, butter, sugar, egg, vinegar, mustard. 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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