Name: Cabbage Rolls with Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 1 ea onion, chopped.; 2 tb butter.; 1 ea garlic clove, crushed (optional).; 3/4 c uncooked raw rice.; 200 g ground beef or veal.; 200 g ground pork.; 1 ts salt.; 1/4 ts pepper.; 1 ea whole head cabbage.; Boiling water.; 2 c beef broth or stock.; 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup.

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Absorbs liquid and softens during baking, giving the filling body and keeping it moist.
Ground beef or veal: Provides the main meaty filling and fat that adds flavour and juiciness.
Ground pork: Adds fat to the filling, keeping the rolls tender and moist as they bake.
Cabbage: Forms the edible wrapper; blanching softens the leaves so they roll without tearing.
Onion: Sweetens and builds savoury flavour when softened slowly in butter.
Beef broth or stock: Supplies liquid that moistens the rolls and forms the sauce during baking.

The step that matters

Blanching the whole cabbage head. Cooking the head only briefly softens the outer leaves enough to bend without cracking. Overcooking makes them limp and prone to tearing, while undercooking leaves them stiff and hard to roll.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, clove, rice, beef, pork, pepper):

Thymefits better
Garlicthe original
Cinnamonfits about as well
Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, clove, rice, beef, pork, 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Beef	100g cooked	250
Pork	100g cooked	242
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Broccoli	1 cup chopped (156g)	55
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Veal	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0
Soup	not in our table	0

Cabbage Rolls with Mushroom Soup