Hot Slaw

HOT SLAW

Hot slaw seems to be a culinary tradition unique to Cleveland, TN.  At some point in the 70’s, my mother discovered hot slaw from Tip Top Food Town was the perfect accompaniment to her barbecue.   Her barbecue was, in turn, an attempt to imitate Singleton’s barbecue from Florence, Alabama.  (My next adventure in recipe creation will be do figure out my mother’s Singleton’s imitation barbecue sauce.)  I have heard that there are earlier versions of hot slaw.  A recent Garden and Gun article about southern hot slaw calls out the Cleveland, TN version and says that Lloyd “Fuzz” Calloway made hot slaw at the Star Vue Drive-in to go on hot dogs.  I never had any of that slaw.  My earliest memories were of plastic containers from the grocery store.  

When Tip Top closed, someone at Red Food acquired what was a close copy of the Tip Top version.  Mother said it was not the same, but she bought it anyway.   When Red Food closed, Cooke’s got the recipe.  Again, old memories say the original was better.  We are in search of the original.  The Tip Top version was in plain unlabeled container, no ingredients.  Cooke’s today’s version lists four ingredients: cabbage, mustard, mayonnaise, and pickled Jalapeno peppers.  The Garden and Gun article mentions onion was an ingredient.  We have our memory of what it should taste and look like to go with that starting point.  We have to narrow down proportions and specific brand names.  My guess is that since this was an industrial scale operation, there was no time for fussy recipes with fifteen herbs and spices.  The recipe was simple and used readily available prepared ingredients.

Here is my thought process.

First we have the distinctive yellow color.  Most slaw looks like chopped cabbage and mayonnaise with maybe some orange flecks of carrot.  It is white and somewhat sweet.  Hot slaw is distinctly yellow.  When you look at it, you recognize that the yellow is French’s Original bright yellow color.  No hint of fancy-dancy Grey Poupon Dijon mustard made with white wine and actually from France. The flavor has the vinegar bite without the sharp spice of an authentic hot mustard.  Undoubtedly, this was off-the-shelf French’s that came in the bulbous jar.  If you are looking for authentic, this is the right stuff.

Next consider the mayonnaise, the recipe originated in the 60’s.  At that time, there was just one brand of mayonnaise in the grocery, Kraft Mayonnaise.  This had to be the right stuff.  However, today’s Kraft Real Mayonnaise is not the same.  Kraft has caved to America’s sweet tooth and added some sugar. Hellman’s Original is much closer to the taste of Kraft’s of the 60’s.

The jalapeno is the main flavor ingredient.  The rest is just a way to spread the jalapeno around thin enough so you can swallow it without running for the fire extinguisher.  This is the ingredient that I believe will elicit the greatest range of preference in the final mix.  I like hot and I specifically chose a jar labeled Hot Jalapeno Pepper.  I must be somewhat alone in east Tennessee in this regard because there was only one brand of jalapeno labeled “hot” in La Follette, TN.  There were twenty or more labeled “mild”.  Your “mild”-age may vary.  I contend that hot slaw is a condiment and needs to be fairly intense to flavor the pork and balance the barbecue sauce.  If you taste mine straight, it has a burn but not three alarm fire intensity.  On a barbecue sandwich, it is just right. Anyway, the only hot jalapenos were only available as slices, so I chopped mine by hand with a knife to get consistent small pieces.  Most of the packing liquid is lost in the chopping.  The size of the jalapeno pieces needs to be small.  I would suspect that the Tip Top grocery bought them pre-chopped.

The last ingredient of the recipe is just cabbage.  I bought a head of cabbage and chopped it in a food processor.  You could buy pre-chopped slaw mix.  It might contain some carrots.  That is not a problem.  The size of the cabbage chunks does matter.  If you get the kind that is strips ¼ inch by an inch, that is too big, you will have to chop it smaller.  The ratio of coating to cabbage depends on the size of the cabbage. Also, if you chop the cabbage fresh, some cabbage liquid is retained in the food processor.  I am imagining a person in the grocery dumping in whole cabbages into an industrial size food processor and then throwing in mustard, mayo, and jalapeno from the gallon size white plastic containers from the food service supply.  It changes the consistency and flavor to have freshly chopped the cabbage before the moisture escapes.

So those are the ingredients, now we have to find the proportions.  Just like a true test kitchen, I started with a test matrix.  

I planned to go by looks and taste to adjust the proportions as I went but the first bowl was pretty close to the right consistency.  I added a more jalapeno, onion, and Dijon mustard to the base recipe to see I could improve in the next three bowls.  All three increased the heat.  When I was finished tasting these, I just dumped them all into the same bowl.  That was about right.  So my final recipe adds a little Dijon and onion.  Notice there is no salt or black or red pepper beyond what is in the mayo and mustard, and certainly no sugar.  Add it if you must.  

I made a full batch yesterday with my recipe.  If you want go authentic, leave out the onion and Dijon

Hot Slaw

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups chopped cabbage (about ½ head)

1/3 c French’s mustard

1/3 c Hellman’s mayonnaise

1/3 c pickled hot jalapeno peppers finely chopped (mine were La Perfereda Organic Jalapeno Nacho Slices)

For a little more flavor add

1 tbl grated onion

1 tbl Dijon mustard

Chop the cabbage in a food process using the fine shredding disk.  Measure the cabbage into a large bowl.  Add remaining ingredients adjusting  amounts for the actual amount of cabbage obtained.  Stir to mix thoroughly.  Add a teaspoon of mayo or mustard to get the look you want.

The slaw is fine to serve immediately.   If it is stored in the refrigerator overnight, it gets a bit hotter as the onion and jalapeno permeate the liquid.  This slaw is excellent on barbecue or just about any sandwich.  It is a bit hot to eat straight.