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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad made with egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, and butter.

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

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks well.

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

  3. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Cook and cool

  1. Add the cabbage and boil for 5 minutes, continuing to stir.

  2. Remove from heat and let the slaw cool.

  3. If desired, add sugar to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + buttertop 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

Hard white cabbage
Forms the body of the slaw and softens slightly as it simmers in the dressing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that flavours the slaw and balances the richness of the yolks.
Thick sweet cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, rounder texture in the cooked dressing.

The step that matters

Keep the dressing stirred while it heats. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble and turn grainy if they get too hot or sit still over direct heat. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the dressing stays smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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