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Cold Slaw
Shave cabbage, stand in ice water to make crisp. Drain, add cooked salad dressing and serve with vegetables. Hard boiled eggs garnish this nicely and add to the taste. Onion and celery may be added.
A bare outline rather than a formula: the whole thing hinges on the dressing, which the original assumes you already have on hand.
- "Cooked salad dressing"This means a boiled dressing — egg yolks, vinegar, a little sugar and mustard, thickened over water and often loosened with cream or milk. It is tangier than mayonnaise; bottled mayonnaise thinned with a spoonful of cider vinegar and a pinch of dry mustard is the nearest quick substitute.
- "Shave" the cabbageShaved means cut as thin as possible, not chopped. A mandoline or the thinnest setting on a food processor slicing disc gives the fine ribbons the period expected; a sharp knife on quartered, cored cabbage works as well.
- The ice-water soakTwenty to thirty minutes is enough to firm the shreds. Drain thoroughly and pat dry or spin in a salad spinner — water left clinging will thin the dressing and pool in the bowl within minutes.
- Dress it lateSalted or dressed cabbage begins weeping quickly. Combine no more than half an hour before serving if you want the crispness the ice water bought you.
- QuantitiesNone are given. A medium head, roughly 2 lb, yields about 8 cups shredded and takes something under a cup of dressing; that serves six to eight as a side.
- The additionsOnion and celery are the original suggestion. Grate or mince the onion finely and use it sparingly — a raw onion cut coarsely will dominate a delicate boiled dressing. Hard-boiled eggs are best quartered or sieved over the top rather than stirred in.
- "Serve with vegetables"Most likely this means serve it alongside the vegetable dishes at dinner, not that vegetables should be mixed into the slaw.
"Cold slaw" is generally explained as an English reworking of the Dutch koolsla (cabbage salad), which came with Dutch settlers; "cold slaw" was widely printed through the nineteenth century before "coleslaw" settled into general use — and the reading of "cole" as "cold" was strong enough that some books also offered a "hot slaw" by way of contrast. The dressing is worth noting: cooked or boiled dressings made with egg yolks, vinegar and flour were common in household cookery of the period, cheaper in oil than mayonnaise and more stable in a kitchen without reliable refrigeration. The instruction to crisp the shredded cabbage in ice water suits cabbage that has been in storage.