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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad dressed with a custard-like egg and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Shred the cabbage to fill a large vegetable dish.

  2. Season the cabbage with salt and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, beat the eggs, sugar, butter, mustard, and vinegar together.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring until it thickens like soft custard.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cabbage.

  2. For added richness, stir in the thick sweet cream 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 + 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. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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 into a soft custard as they cook and set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the slaw its tangy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and smooths the dressing.
Thick sweet cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier mouthfeel to the slaw.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Eggs thicken when heated gently, but high heat can scramble them into lumps. Low heat and constant stirring let the mixture thicken smoothly into a custard.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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