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Cabbage Lettuce with Gravy

Cabbage lettuce with gravy is a boiled cabbage dish served with a meat and onion gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Lettuce with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Trim off the loose outside leaves from the lettuces.

  2. Boil the heads in water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain and press gently to remove excess water.

  4. Cut the lettuces in halves.

  5. Arrange them on a dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  6. Tie the halves together.

Braise the lettuce

  1. Place the lettuce halves in a saucepan. Cover with 1 quart of water.

  2. Add the meat, onion, mace, and bay leaf.

  3. Cover and cook gently for 1 hour.

  4. Carefully lift the lettuces with a skimmer.

  5. Cut the string. Arrange them neatly on a dish. Press them lightly together with a spoon.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour.

  2. Boil the stock until reduced to 1 pint.

  3. Stir the stock into the butter and flour mixture until it boils.

  4. Strain the gravy over the lettuce leaves.

  5. Serve garnished with squares of toasted bread.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuces
Form the main vegetable body, becoming tender and mild during gentle cooking.
Beef or fresh meat
Adds savory flavor to the cooking liquid, which becomes the base of the stock.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the gravy and helps carry the flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked with the butter.
Stock from cooking
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, giving it body and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the stock into the butter and flour mixture until it boils. Flour must be cooked in fat before and while liquid is added, and the gravy must be stirred as it comes to a boil, so that starch swells evenly and no lumps form.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, pepper, beef, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, pepper, beef, onion, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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