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Swedish Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish cooked in milk with butter, salt, pepper, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Swedish Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage into thin shreds as for cold slaw.

  2. Cook the shredded cabbage in a generous amount of rapidly boiling water for fifteen minutes.

  3. Drain off the water.

Cook in milk

  1. Cover the cabbage with milk.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and a bit of mace.

  3. Cook until tender, and until the milk has boiled away so that it only moistens the cabbage.

  4. Add a piece of butter.

  5. Serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

108Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
2 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks.
Milk (in the method)
Cooks down to a light moisture that coats the cabbage shreds.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat finish to the cabbage.

The step that matters

Boiling away the milk. Cook until the milk has reduced to a thin moisture rather than a pool. If it is left too wet, the cabbage turns soggy and diluted; if reduced too far, it can scorch on the pan base and stick.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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