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Stewed Cabbage

A cabbage stew with ham, butter, broth, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, served with fried sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Stewed Cabbage

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 ↓

Stewed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Wash and slice the cabbage thinly.

  2. In a stewpan, combine cabbage, ham, butter, broth, and vinegar.

  3. Cover and stew for 3 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add more broth or gravy, sugar, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  2. Boil until the liquid is nearly gone.

  3. Serve in a dish topped with fried sausages.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender and sweet during long stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed cabbage.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that softens the cabbage and carries flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil until the liquid is nearly gone. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavors of the broth, vinegar, and sugar. Boiling too long can scorch the sugar and dry the cabbage, so watch it closely near the end.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, vinegar, sugar, 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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