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Hot Slaw
Slice cabbage as for Cole-Slaw, using one-half cabbage. Heat in a dressing made of yolks of two eggs slightly beaten, one-fourth cup cold water, one tablespoon butter, one-fourth cup hot vinegar, and one-half teaspoon salt, stirred over hot water until thickened.
A warm cabbage salad dressed with a stirred egg-and-vinegar custard — essentially a boiled dressing made in a double boiler. The whole dish takes under twenty minutes once the cabbage is shredded.
- The hinge: keep the dressing off direct heat"Stirred over hot water" means a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water, not a pan on the burner. Two yolks in that little liquid will scramble in seconds over direct heat; over water they thicken smoothly to the consistency of thin cream in three to five minutes.
- Add the vinegar hot, and slowlyThe recipe calls for hot vinegar; whisk it in a spoonful at a time, off the heat if the mixture is already thickening.
- Vinegar strengthHousehold vinegar of the period was usually cider vinegar, though its strength was not standardised the way today's 5 percent is; a quarter cup is a fair modern quantity. If yours is a sharper wine vinegar, cut it with a spoonful of water.
- Half a cabbageTake a medium head of about 2 lb, so half is roughly 1 lb, or about six lightly packed cups shredded. Slice it as thin as you can — thick shreds will not wilt in the residual heat of the dressing.
- "Heat in a dressing"The cabbage goes into the finished dressing and is tossed over the hot water just long enough to warm through and soften slightly, a minute or two. Cooking it further releases water, thins the dressing and turns the cabbage sulphurous.
- Butter and seasoningOne tablespoon of butter beaten in at the end gives the dressing its gloss; use unsalted and taste before adding more than the half teaspoon of salt. A grind of pepper and a pinch of sugar or dry mustard are period-appropriate and improve it.
- Yield and servingServes four as a side. It is meant to go to the table warm, alongside pork, sausage or boiled beef; it does not hold well and will weep if made ahead.
Hot slaw belongs to the older, warmer half of the cabbage-salad family: before bottled mayonnaise, "boiled dressing" — egg yolks thickened with vinegar over water — was a common American salad sauce, and equally at home hot or cold. The word slaw comes from the Dutch sla, shortened from salade, and is generally traced into English through Dutch settlement in America; koolsla, cabbage salad, gave us cole-slaw, and "hot slaw" is simply the same dish served warm. It was eaten as a hot side dish with meat, in the manner of the German and Pennsylvania Dutch wilted-cabbage preparations. Recipes of this kind lean on cabbage's long winter keeping: it was one of the few fresh vegetables a household could count on in February.