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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with vinegar, butter, egg, celery seed, flour, and salt.

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

Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle the flour, salt, and celery seed over the chopped cabbage.

  2. Warm the vinegar and butter in a skillet.

  3. Add the cabbage to the skillet.

  4. Beat the egg and pour it over the cabbage mixture.

  5. Mix well and cook for 2 minutes.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool before serving.

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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the slaw and provides its crisp, fresh texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and egg.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the cabbage.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping thicken the mixture and bind it together.
Flour
Starch thickens the warm liquid, giving the dressing body rather than a runny finish.

The step that matters

Pouring the beaten egg into the hot cabbage mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, so mixing it in well and cooking briefly lets it thicken the dressing evenly. Pouring it in unstirred or overcooking it can cause curdled, lumpy pieces.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, egg, vinegar, butter, flour. 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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