Skip to main content
Main

Cold Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with a hot butter, vinegar, flour, and cayenne pepper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cold 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 ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Finely mince the cabbage and place it in a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar, butter, flour, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

  4. Once boiling, stir in the beaten eggs and remove from heat.

Dress and serve

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

  2. Allow to cool before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

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

  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 bulk of the dish and stays crisp under the warm dressing when finely minced.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during heating, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the dressing by starch gelatinization as it comes to a boil.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and eggs.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs once boiling. Eggs thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot or are added to a fast boil without constant stirring. Removing the pan from heat promptly keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, flour, pepper, 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 cold slaw recipes

Dressing 49 See all 157 →

You might also like

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