carolina cole slaw

Sometimes if my daughter has an overabundance of produce in her Dreyer’s Farms CSA box, she’ll pass along some items to me. In one of her boxes, she gave me had a half of head of cabbage and a purple spring onion. At first, I was puzzled as to what do with these two items, but after going through my recipe files, I came across a recipe from the March 1996 issue of Bon Appétit Magazine for Carolina Cole Slaw. What is great about this recipe is the fact that there is no mayonnaise in this slaw.
Fortunately for me the half of head of cabbage yielded the 1-1/4 pounds of thinly sliced cabbage I needed. I also used the purple spring onion instead of regular yellow onions for a little color. A sliced green pepper is also in the slaw. In order to get the cabbage and onion nice and thin, I used my mandoline slicer for both.

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The dressing is a cooked combination of distilled white vinegar, sugar, vegetable oil, dry mustard and celery seeds. The ingredients are placed in a non-aluminum saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and comes to a boil. After you remove the dressing from the heat, salt and pepper are added for additional seasoning. The dressing needs to cool completely before being added to the cabbage.

I brought this over to my daughter’s yesterday for lunch and it was wonderful. I loved the sweet and sour dressing which wasn’t overpowering and was refreshing accompaniment to the barbecue chicken she served. This is an easy recipe to prepare and would be great for a picnic as it wouldn’t need refrigeration. There’s still a lot of hot weather a head. Why not try something different for your next get together.