Name: Cabbage, Boiled
Ingredients: 1 large drum-head cabbage or 1 green savory cabbage; Coarse sea salt (to taste); Drawn butter or melted butter (for serving)

Why it works: Cabbage and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,397 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cabbage, Boiled

Ingredients

1 large drum-head cabbage or 1 green savory cabbage
Coarse sea salt (to taste)
Drawn butter or melted butter (for serving)

Directions

Prepare and cook

Clean the cabbage thoroughly to remove any insects.
Boil the large drum-head cabbage for 1 hour or the green savory cabbage for 20 minutes in salted water.
Avoid overcooking to prevent it from becoming watery.

Drain and serve

Drain the cabbage in a colander.
Serve with drawn butter or melted butter.

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 + 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 main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks in salted water.
Drawn butter: Adds richness and fat to the cooked cabbage at serving.