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Cabbage Pudding

A baked dish of boiled cabbage, bacon, butter, milk, eggs, mustard, and spices topped with butter and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cabbage and bacon until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Chop the cabbage and bacon finely.

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped cabbage, butter, milk, beaten eggs, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered deep dish.

  3. Top with pepper, bits of fresh butter, and grated cracker or stale bread.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
Milk
Adds liquid that cooks with the eggs to form a soft, tender custard.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the cabbage.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it its body and mild flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. The eggs set as they heat, turning the milk mixture into a custard. Overbaking makes the egg proteins tighten too far, leaving the pudding rubbery and watery, so check for a light brown top rather than baking longer than needed.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, mustard, pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, mustard, pepper, bread. 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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