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Salad

Cold Slaw

A chilled cabbage salad with a creamy, slightly sweet and tangy dressing.

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

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine flour, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, egg yolks, sour cream, and vinegar.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it boils, about 2 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and cool in the refrigerator until cold.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the chopped cabbage and serve.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during cooking and add richness.
Sour cream
Provides the creamy body and tangy flavor of the dressing.
Flour
Stabilizes the dressing so it thickens without separating when heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp base that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing until it boils. Egg yolks can curdle if overheated, but the mixture must reach a boil so the flour fully thickens it. Stirring constantly over medium heat spreads the heat evenly and prevents scorching or lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, pepper, egg, cream, 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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