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Stuffed Cabbage

A cabbage head stuffed with a mutton and rice mixture, simmered in tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Scoop out the center of the cabbage.

  2. Save the removed material for salad.

  3. Parboil the cabbage until tender.

  4. Drain the cabbage.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the vegetable oil in a pan.

  2. Add the rice.

  3. Partially brown the rice.

  4. Add the mutton cut into small pieces.

  5. Brown the mutton well.

  6. Stir in the stock, water, and seasonings.

  7. Cover the mixture.

  8. Steam until the rice is soft and the meat is tender.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the center with the cooked meat and rice mixture.

  2. Place the stuffed cabbage in a saucepan.

  3. Pour the tomato sauce around it.

  4. Cook in the sauce for about 10 minutes.

  5. Serve with sauce.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cabbage + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together361 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavor and becomes tender through long, covered steaming.
Rice
Absorbs the stock and juices, becoming soft and giving the filling body.
Cabbage
Forms the edible wrapper that holds the filling and turns tender when parboiled.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and moisture, surrounding the cabbage as it cooks in the sauce.
Stock
Adds savory flavor and liquid for steaming the rice and meat.
Vegetable oil
Carries heat for browning the rice and mutton, adding flavor through browning.

The step that matters

Brown the mutton well. Browning creates deep savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat added to the liquid will steam and taste flat in the finished filling.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, pepper, mutton, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, mutton, tomato, sauce. 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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