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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage slaw dressed with a mustard‑flour vinaigrette and whipped cream.

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 the cabbage

  1. Remove the outside leaves from the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

  2. Slice the cabbage very thinly and soak it in cold water until crisp.

  3. Drain and dry the cabbage.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, salt, flour, powdered sugar, cayenne, melted butter, egg yolk, and hot vinegar.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly over hot water until it thickens.

  3. Cool the mixture and fold in whipped cream.

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cabbage
Forms the crisp body of the slaw, which the dressing coats.
Egg yolk
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it into a smooth custard.
Flour
Stabilises the dressing so it thickens without curdling during slow cooking.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, cool texture when folded into the cooked dressing.
Hot vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly over hot water until it thickens. Egg yolk sets at a low temperature, so slow heat over water thickens the dressing smoothly. Higher heat can scramble the yolk into lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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