Name: Dinner
Ingredients: 4 cups broth; 1 cup chopped cabbage; 1 teaspoon chopped tomato; 1 teaspoon chopped turnip; 2 teaspoons chopped celery; 1 slice steak (about 3.5 ounces); 1 cup chopped squash; 1 tablespoon butter; Cream to taste

Why it works: Cabbage and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

Heat the broth in a pot.
Add the chopped cabbage, tomato, turnip, and celery.
Simmer until the vegetables are tender.
Add the chopped squash to the vegetable broth.
Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Cook and serve

Cook the steak in a separate pan to your desired doneness.
Serve the broth with the steak on the side, topped with butter and cream.

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 + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak: Supplies the protein and meaty flavour, cooked separately so it can be done to taste.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished broth.
Cream: Adds richness and softens the broth's savoury flavour.
Squash: Adds body and natural sweetness as it softens in the broth.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, turnip, celery, butter, cream):

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Horseradishfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, turnip, celery, butter, cream. 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.