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Ladies' Cabbage

A baked pudding made from boiled cabbage, eggs, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ladies' Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the cabbage in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Change the water for fresh boiling water.

  3. When tender, drain and let cool.

  4. Chop the cooled cabbage finely.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Mix the chopped cabbage with the beaten eggs, butter, and milk or cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together599 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it its body and mild flavour.
Eggs
Bind the chopped cabbage together and set when baked, giving the pudding its structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to flavour and a tender texture.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the custard-like mixture soft as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. Baking too long can dry out the eggs and over-set the custard, making the pudding firm and rubbery. Pull it from the oven once the top is browned and the centre has just set.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk. 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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