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Cabbage Salad
1/2 head cabbage 6 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon mustard 2 teaspoons melted butter 1/4 cup vinegar Cut the cabbage in several parts, and wash it well. Remove wilted or tough leaves, cut out the core and chop very fine with a sharp knife. Cook the eggs hard, chop five of them very fine, place the cabbage in a salad-bowl, add the chopped eggs, and toss and fold lightly together. Mix the sugar, salt, mustard and vinegar well together and pour this liquid over the cabbage and eggs. Toss again lightly with a fork held in each hand, arrange in a dish, and garnish with the remaining egg cut in slices.
A boiled-dressing-style slaw without the boiling: a sharp sweet-sour vinegar dressing over finely chopped raw cabbage and hard-cooked egg. Half a head of cabbage is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb trimmed, giving about 6 cups chopped and serving six.
- The mustard is dryThe mustard is probably dry -- in a list of this period "1 teaspoon mustard" most often means powdered mustard rather than prepared, though the recipe does not say. Whisk it into the vinegar first so it dissolves; prepared mustard can be substituted, but the dressing will be milder.
- Where the butter goesThe method never mentions the melted butter again; the only plausible home for it is the dressing, beaten in with the sugar, salt, mustard and vinegar. Add it while still warm and whisk hard, or it will set into flecks the moment it meets cold vinegar.
- Sugar and vinegar balanceHalf a cup of sugar to a quarter cup of vinegar reads as very sweet. Mix the dressing and taste it before it goes on the cabbage; the sugar can be cut back to suit.
- Chop, do not shredThe instruction to chop very fine with a sharp knife is deliberate. Fine chopping gives short pieces that hold the egg and dressing, where long shredded strands shed both. A food processor pulsed a few times works, but over-processing releases water and turns the salad soupy.
- Hard-cooked eggsCover the eggs with cold water, bring to a boil, cover and stand off the heat 10 to 12 minutes, then cool in cold water. Six eggs to a half head of cabbage is a generous proportion; the salad is closer to an egg salad than a slaw.
- Dress at the last momentThere is very little fat to buffer the vinegar and salt, so the cabbage starts to weep soon after dressing. Combine, toss and serve; leftovers will be limp and swimming.
- The two forksTossing with a fork in each hand is not affectation. It lifts and separates without crushing the egg into paste, which is what a spoon does.