Slaws: Cook-off 49

[Marmish]

my favorite is the recipe from the Complete Meat Cookbook

mayo, yogurt or sour cream, worchestershire, lemon juice, tabasco, brown sugar, garlic, lots of pepper. I can make it by heart I've made it so many times. We eat it every meal until it's gone. I also made it for last year's Heartland gathering to go with Ronnie's ribs.

When it's not that one, it's a simple oil vinegar sugar slaw that my grandmother always made. Or the one with mustard from How To Cook Everything. I think it only has 3 or 4 ingredients.

[heidih]

I have been making a cabbage based slaw on the weekends and using it throughout the week for lunch with some added protein like shrimp, fish or chicken, and some chopped roasted nuts. I start with a base of green cabbage, always adding green onion and pickling cucumbers. I also do the dried cranberries and since mangoes have been dirt cheap I buy them hard and let them just start to ripen. They add both sweetness and a different kind of sour. Sometimes carrots are grated in. For the dressing I use fish sauce as the salty component, a mix of tart citrus juice (lime, lemon, tangerine) and whatever vinegar strikes my fancy as the acid, along with a bit of sweet- usually honey. I may add just a few drops of sesame oil or oil from roasted garlic. Fresh herbs like cilantro and mint are added to the serving bowl. On occasion I substitute the packaged brocholi slaw mix for the cabbage. There are of course days when a creamy slaw is the only thing that will do, but it is nice to have this mix available throughout the week.

[Smithy]

*Bump*

 

I've never been a fan of cole slaw. The stuff I grew up with was sweet and gloppy, and for some reason sweet and gloppy has rarely or never fit with vegetables for me. Later I learned that cole slaw doesn't have to be sweet and gloppy; some can taste pretty good. Still. The original knee-jerk distrust of the stuff has kept me from exploring it much. My husband buys the sweet 'n' gloppy stuff he loves and I leave it alone.

 

Fast forward to this summer, and for some reason the idea of crunchy, juicy slaw has been on my mind. I finally got round to trying the first of several slaw recipes from the June/July issue (No. 159) of Fine Cooking Magazine. (Yes, I can be slow about these things.)

 

First attempt: a riff on their "Taco Slaw" -- p. 64 if you have access to the magazine, or a partial link here. I started with a bag of prepared coleslaw mix. The dressing: the juice of half a lime (maybe more, to taste); salt and pepper to taste; mayonnaise to taste; chopped cilantro. My proportions were roughly that half lime's worth of juice, about 1/2 tsp salt; no pepper; 2 - 3 Tbsp Duke's mayo; nearly a cup of chopped cilantro (stems and all).

 

Cole slaw, where have you been all my life?! I can't stop eating the stuff. So far I've been eating it straight but it would make a fine taco topping.

 

 

My husband took a bite, said "too salty" and went back to his sweet gloppy stuff. Fine with me! It eliminates the competition.

 

I've had vinegar slaws before and liked them well enough. The Cole Slaw topic elsewhere in these forums has good recipes. @kayb posted a recipe for her Jail Slaw that I quite like. But for right now, I intend to keep eating this tangy, tart, not-gloppy "Taco Slaw". Eventually I'll try their other recipes: Broccoli Slaw; Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint; their take on Vinegar Slaw.

 

Has any one else been experimenting with new slaw recipes?

[heidih]

Despite being bullied as a "Kraut" in grade school, I love cabbage. I prefer slicing my own from a juicy head versus the package mix. World of difference in taste to me. The post above yours is is still my basic outline. But the slaw I forgot to mention in the recent topic about recipes you will be remembered for is my go-to for buffets and potlucks. Napa cabbage, green onion, grapes (halved & preferably purple) or dried cranberries. The dressing a "Chinese chicken salad" style, hot mustard, and some mayo. The set=apart item is fresh firm Chinese alkaline noodles simmered in a soy water. Teenagers and adults all gobbled it.

[MokaPot]

This is more of a salad than a slaw.

 

Salad dressing: white vinegar, olive oil, garlic, & onion

Regular head cabbage in large slices, microwaved a bit to soften it

Celery

Apples (peeled is my preference)

Blue or Gorgonzola cheese

[heidih]

My Vietnamese market used to sell green papaya already shredded. I've tried with under ripe and even with green not ripe mango. Dried shrimp version as no access to the salted little crabs. I use the green beans pounded as well. A noisy slaw ;)The classic som tum  Addictive.  https://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/green-papaya-salad

[BeeZee]

@heidih, thanks for the link, since I discovered an Asian food market near my office I have access to all of the ingredients.

[heidih]

Today's successful experiment was tart green apple, craisins, grated carrot, onion, lots of black pepper and a touch of ginger and Dijon mustard. Vinegar, fish sauce, and a dribble of olive oil bound it. Plenty of minced cilantro perked it up. I like sweet/sour/salty so I added a teaspoon of my somewhat over carmelized citrus marmalade and that made it. "Mistakes" can be interesting and delicious.

[FeChef]

I love a creamy, slightly vinegar slaw with red cabbage, but i only make it in small batches because the red cabbage turns everything purple the nexr day, and it grosses me out.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

59 minutes ago, FeChef said:

I love a creamy, slightly vinegar slaw with red cabbage, but i only make it in small batches because the red cabbage turns everything purple the nexr day, and it grosses me out.

 

For this reason I gave up on purple cabbage many years ago.  I just made a batch of coleslaw for my dinner.  I dress my cabbage with Hellmann's (must be Hellmann's), garlic lime hot sauce, and thinned with apple cider vinegar.  As an added benefit green cabbage is a lot less expensive than the purple kind.