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Hot Slaw

A hot cabbage slaw dressed with vinegar, butter, egg, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Hot Slaw

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 ↓

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the vinegar.

  2. Remove from heat and quickly stir in butter, egg, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour the mixture over the finely chopped cabbage.

  4. Cover closely and serve while hot.

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

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

  5. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the dressing.
Egg
Thickens the warm dressing and helps bind it together as it sets gently.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the fat and vinegar together.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up the warm dressing.

The step that matters

Remove the vinegar from the heat before stirring in the egg. Egg proteins set at high temperature, so adding it to boiling liquid can scramble it into lumps. Taking the pan off the heat first lets the residual warmth thicken the dressing smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, egg, 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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