Earlier this month, my daughter Jess shot me a text asking for my mother's cole slaw recipe.
Mom's not too terribly forthcoming when she chooses to be (the topics that invite this reluctance seem to be random). Recipes being one of them, I stopped asking for this one after the third reminder in a week.
And got to thinking--growing up, the kids had been crazy for this stuff--every holiday, if we were heading to their house, one or the other kid would get on the phone and ask Mom to make it for the meal. Didn't matter if the meal wasn't one that featured cole slaw.
And I know Jess had me ask for that recipe before....as in, when we all lived together. And back then, when Mom was actually making the slaw (these days her arthritis stimies a lot of long-term activities, like chopping) I remembered I had actually sat in the kitchen while she made it, and wrote it down.
All I had to do was find a 15-year old piece of notebook paper.
Somewhere in the house.
I spend three days looking for the thing in my spare time.
On the fourth day, I mention my challenge to my wife.
She thought for a second, then said, "I think I have that sheet with my recipes."
Fifteen minutes later I have my Slaw sheet.
After sharing it with Jess, I thought I'd share it here, too.
Like with any other pass-down recipe, Mom never committed to exact measurements, but this was what was extracted from Mom over time. Neither did Grandmom, with whom this originated, near as I can tell.
Best way is to make some batches and see what works out best. She was very clear about the two drops of vinegar, though. Basically, the way I was shown was you pour the vinegar into the bottle's cap, and then drip from the cap into the mixing bowl. This keeps things under control. Unless you have an eyedropper handy.
1 head of cabbage, shredded
1/4 tsp salt (you may want to scale that back a bit for the first time)
2 drops vinegar
minced spanish onion (I have no notation here, but this is a mild onion
so I'm thinking you could work with pinches from a teaspoon)
pepper (pinch, adjust to taste over time)
mayo (3 or 4 tblsp to start, adjust to creaminess preference)
1 tbsp milk
That's it.
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