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Cabbage Soup

A simple soup made from cabbage, stock, clarified dripping, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage in salt water to remove insects.

  2. Boil the cabbage until tender.

  3. Chop the boiled cabbage finely and press out excess water.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped cabbage, stock, dripping, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour with a spoonful of stock or water until smooth.

  4. Pour the flour mixture into the boiling soup and cook for 5 minutes, stirring well.

  5. For a thicker soup, add more flour if desired.

  6. Optionally, rub the serving tureen with a cut garlic clove for added flavor.

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. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 soup and becomes soft, tender bulk when boiled.
Clarified dripping
Adds fat and a rich, savoury flavour to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the flour mixture into the boiling soup. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if it is not first smoothed into a paste with cold or warm liquid. Stirring well while it cooks lets the starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened soup.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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