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Cabbage Salad (Two quarts finely-chopped)
Two quarts finely-chopped cabbage, two level table-spoons salt, two of white sugar, one of black pepper, and a heaping one of ground mustard; rub yolks of four hard-boiled eggs until smooth, add half cup butter, slightly warmed; mix thoroughly with the cabbage, and add tea-cup good vinegar; serve with whites of the eggs sliced and placed on the salad. -Mrs. Col. Hawkins.
A cooked-egg-yolk dressing rather than a mayonnaise: the yolks and butter carry the seasoning, the vinegar sharpens it. The proportions are aggressive by modern taste, so season in stages.
- YieldTwo quarts of chopped cabbage is roughly one medium-to-large head, and serves eight to ten as a side. The dressing quantity suits that volume; halve everything for a family meal.
- TeacupA teacup in American books of this period is usually reckoned at somewhere around 3/4 cup, not the 8 oz breakfast cup. Start with half that amount of vinegar and add the rest to taste, since modern bottled vinegar is standardised in strength and period vinegar varied.
- Salt and pepperTwo level tablespoons of salt and one of black pepper is a great deal for a single head of cabbage. Begin with two teaspoons of salt and one of pepper, mix, and adjust.
- Ground mustardThis is dry English-style mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. A heaping tablespoon is correct in kind but strong in quantity; two teaspoons gives plenty of heat, and the powder needs a few minutes in the wet dressing to bloom.
- The butterHalf a cup of butter, warmed only until soft and workable, not melted to oil. Melted butter will separate out and set into flecks once the salad chills. Mash it into the sieved yolks to a smooth paste, then loosen that paste with the vinegar a spoonful at a time before it meets the cabbage.
- Serve at room temperatureButter-bound dressings stiffen in the refrigerator and the salad turns waxy. Dress it not long before serving and keep it cool rather than cold.
- Chopping"Finely-chopped" rather than shredded: a chop gives a shorter, more irregular cut, and a coarse chop holds the thick dressing better than long shreds do.
- Salting and waterCabbage weeps once salted. If the salad must stand more than an hour, toss the cabbage with a little of the salt first, let it drain twenty minutes, then squeeze and dress it, or the dressing will thin and pool.
Before bottled mayonnaise, American cabbage salads were commonly bound in several ways: a boiled dressing thickened with egg and flour, dressings of cream or plain vinegar, or, as here, a paste of hard-boiled yolks worked smooth with butter and let down with vinegar. The yolk-and-butter method needs no cooking beyond the eggs, which made it practical in a kitchen with a wood range and no reliable way to hold a custard at temperature. Sliced whites laid over the top were a common garnish for such salads, using up the rest of the egg and giving the dish something to look at. The Dixie Cook Book, like most of the community-and-compilation cookbooks of its era, credits contributors by their husbands' names and titles, and "Mrs. Col. Hawkins" is one of many such attributions carried through the volume. The heavy hand with mustard, pepper and vinegar is characteristic of the period, when a slaw was expected to sit alongside rich meat and cut through it.