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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with an egg-based custard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cold 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 ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the vinegar and mustard, then stir until it boils and thickens like custard.

Prepare and serve

  1. Finely cut the cabbage just before serving and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Mix the milk into the cold sauce and pour it over the cabbage in the serving dish.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the sauce to a custard-like texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture and mellows the sauce into a creamier, looser dressing.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, fresh bulk that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot or is left unstirred. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly until it thickens.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard, milk. 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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