Why it works: Beef and cabbage work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 872 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Boiled Dinner
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the corned beef until tender.
Add cabbage and the other vegetable to the pot. Cook until all ingredients are tender.
Serve together as a boiled dinner.
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.
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Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together872 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corned beef
- Provides the main protein and savory flavor, becoming tender through long simmering.
- Cabbage
- Adds bulk and mild sweetness as it softens in the cooking liquid.
- Other vegetable
- Adds bulk, texture and extra flavor to the pot.
The step that matters
Cook until all ingredients are tender. Vegetables and meat cook at different rates, so the cook must check each piece. Cabbage can turn mushy if overcooked, while corned beef needs enough time to become tender and soft.
“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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