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Cream Cabbage

A cabbage dish dressed with a sour cream and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper 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 ↓

Cream Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dressing

  1. Scald the sour cream and egg together in a saucepan.

  2. Add vinegar to taste.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Chop or slice the cabbage.

  2. Sprinkle the cabbage with salt and pepper.

  3. Wilt the cabbage in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Squeeze out the excess liquid from the cabbage.

Serve

  1. Cover the cabbage with the dressing.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds richness and a tangy, creamy body to the dressing.
Egg
Thickens the warm dressing as its proteins set gently when heated.
Cabbage
Main vegetable; wilting softens it and releases water that must be squeezed out.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Scald the sour cream and egg together. Egg proteins set when heated, so heating gently over low heat keeps the dressing smooth. Overheating makes the egg curdle the sour cream and leaves a grainy sauce.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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