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Cbeam Cabbage

A cabbage dish topped with a sauce of egg yolks, sugar, vinegar, butter, salt, cayenne pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cbeam Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir over medium heat until it boils.

  4. Stir in the cream and let it boil again.

Serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the cooked cabbage.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with heat and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp tang.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce's sharpness.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and let it boil again. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vinegar, butter, pepper, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vinegar, butter, pepper, cream. 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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