Name: Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 large fresh cabbage; 2 cups cooked chicken or veal, finely chopped; 1 egg yolk; Coarse sea salt, to taste

Why it works: Cabbage and chicken work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 436 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

1 large fresh cabbage
2 cups cooked chicken or veal, finely chopped
1 egg yolk
Coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

Prepare

Cut out the heart of the cabbage.
Fill the cavity with the finely chopped chicken or veal, seasoned and mixed with the egg yolk.
Tie the cabbage securely, using string or cloth.

Cook

Boil the cabbage in a covered kettle for 2 hours.

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.

Cabbage + chickentop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together436 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Cabbage + eggtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,391 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or veal: Provides the savoury filling that is cooked inside the cabbage.
Egg yolk: Binds the chopped meat so the filling holds together during cooking.