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Salad

Cold Cream Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cold Cream Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage very finely.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Mix well with a fork and place in a salad bowl.

Finish

  1. Pour the whipped cream over the cabbage mixture.

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.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cabbage + cidertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexan-1-ol (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White cabbage
Provides the crisp, crunchy bulk of the slaw.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the cabbage and cuts the richness of the cream.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a creamy coating that softens the sharp dressing.

The step that matters

Slice the cabbage very finely. Fine shreds take up the sweet-sour dressing evenly and become tender without losing their crunch. Thick pieces stay tough and leave the dressing pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, cream. 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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