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Salad

Cold Slaw

A cold cabbage slaw dressed with a smooth egg yolk vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage and cut it into pieces, but not too fine.

  2. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and place in a cool place.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, beat the yolks of three eggs and the whole of two eggs with vinegar, sugar, mustard, and butter.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it forms a smooth paste, but do not let it boil.

  3. Cool the mixture and just before serving, mix it with the cold cabbage.

  4. Garnish the top with hard boiled egg.

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. Mustard + walnuttop 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
Egg yolks and whole eggs thicken the dressing into a smooth paste as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Red cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the slaw.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing over low heat without boiling. Egg proteins set gently around 70°C to 80°C; if the mixture boils, the eggs can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing instead of a smooth paste.

Swap the walnut

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

  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, vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter. 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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