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Mustard Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with a mustard vinaigrette made from eggs, vinegar, mustard, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage 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 ↓

Mustard Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the beaten eggs, vinegar, ground mustard, salt, black pepper, sugar, and butter.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it comes to a boil, then remove from heat and let it cool.

  3. Once cooled, stir in the sweet cream.

Dress the slaw

  1. Pour the dressing over the finely chopped 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.

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. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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 bind it into a creamy sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the slaw that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing to a boil. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the dressing can curdle or turn lumpy if overheated or stirred poorly. Heating until just boiling and then cooling it before adding the cream keeps it smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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