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Cold and Hot Slaws

A cabbage slaw served cold or warm, dressed with a butter, vinegar, and cayenne sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold and Hot Slaws

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash and strain the cabbage, then cut off the stalk.

  2. Shave the cabbage into very small strips using a sharp knife.

  3. Place the cabbage in a deep dish.

Make and pour the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter with water, vinegar, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it hot over the cabbage.

  3. Serve the cold slaw immediately.

Warm slaw variation

  1. For warm slaw, cut the cabbage as for cold slaw and place it in a deep dish.

  2. Cover the dish and warm it on the stove for 30 minutes without boiling.

  3. Prepare the same dressing as for cold slaw, boil it, and pour it hot over the warm cabbage.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the slaw and soaks up the hot dressing, becoming tender as it sits.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Warm the cabbage without boiling. Gentle heat softens the cabbage while keeping it crisp-tender; boiling would overcook it and make it limp and watery.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar. 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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