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Salad

Atlantic City Cold Slaw

A vinegar-based cold slaw with cabbage, butter, corn starch, cream, mustard, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Atlantic City Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the vinegar.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the butter, corn starch, cream, mustard, egg yolks, and salt.

  3. Add the mixture to the boiling vinegar and stir until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg white.

Prepare the slaw

  1. Chop the cabbage very fine and season with a little salt and vinegar.

  2. Mix some of the dressing with the cabbage and pile the rest on top.

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.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Corn + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat, giving it body and richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the dressing by swelling in hot liquid, so it turns glossy and clings to the cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts the richness of the cream, butter and yolks.
Cream
Adds moisture and mild richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the dressing into the boiling vinegar. Egg yolk proteins can scramble if they get too hot or are not stirred constantly. Stirring while the mixture thickens, then removing it from the heat, keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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