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Hot Slaw

A hot cabbage slaw cooked with vinegar, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

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

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim the cabbage, wash it, and cut it into quarters.

  2. Slice the cabbage finely.

Cook

  1. Cook the cabbage rapidly in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the cabbage and measure it.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the cabbage with vinegar, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  4. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 dish and softens into tender, sliceable strands when cooked.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook the cabbage rapidly in boiling salted water until tender. Boiling quickly keeps the cabbage from becoming waterlogged and mushy, while cooking it until tender breaks down its fibres so it softens evenly before the final simmer.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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