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Salad

Cabbage Salad or Cold Slaw

A cold cabbage slaw made with vinegar, egg yolks, butter, mustard, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cabbage Salad or Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks well in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the vinegar, sugar, butter, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat until boiling.

Cook and cool the slaw

  1. Add the cabbage and stew for 5 minutes, tossing frequently with a silver fork.

  2. Transfer the slaw to a dish and cool completely, preferably on ice.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the thick cream with a silver fork.

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. 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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. 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

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and, once shaved fine, softens and absorbs the dressing when stewed.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they heat and give it a rich, smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the yolks, butter and cream.
Sugar
Rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel in the cooked dressing.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the finished slaw.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolk dressing. Egg yolks thicken as they heat but can scramble if overheated, leaving a grainy texture. Heating gently while stirring keeps the dressing smooth and cohesive.

Swap the walnut

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

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

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