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Creamed Cabbage

A cabbage dish mixed with sour cream, sugar, eggs, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Creamed 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 eggs together in a saucepan.

  2. Add vinegar to taste.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Chop or slice the cabbage and sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Wilt the cabbage in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Squeeze out the excess liquid from the cabbage.

Assemble

  1. Cover the wilted 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
Provides richness and tang that forms the creamy base of the dressing.
Eggs
Thicken the scalded sour cream mixture into a smooth, lightly set dressing.
Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and softens when wilted in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and sour cream.

The step that matters

Scald the sour cream and eggs together. Heating eggs gently with sour cream thickens them without curdling. If the mixture gets too hot or boils, the eggs can scramble and the dressing turns grainy.

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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