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Dressing for Cold Slaw

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with eggs, vinegar, sugar, flour, butter, and optional mustard, served over shredded cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Dressing for 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 ↓

Dressing for Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add vinegar, sugar, flour, and butter; mix well.

  3. If desired, add a little mustard.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the finely chopped shredded cabbage.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat and add richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Flour
Helps thicken the dressing and keep it from being runny.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smoother and richer.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so gentle heat thickens the dressing smoothly. Higher heat can scramble the eggs and leave lumps.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, sugar, flour, butter, cabbage):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Radishfits about as well

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