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Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish with butter, flour, and milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into four pieces, removing the heart and outer leaves.

  2. Boil a large saucepan of water, then add the salt and baking soda.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Add the cabbage and cover until it boils rapidly again, then remove the cover and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the cabbage in a colander.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the same saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened, then season with pepper and salt.

  3. Return the cabbage to the saucepan and let it bubble together for a moment before serving.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and turns tender as it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour into the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when cooked in butter and liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and body.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, helping the cabbage soften and keep its colour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Flour starch clumps if liquid is poured in all at once. Adding milk gradually while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, producing a smooth sauce that thickens properly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, 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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