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Escalloped Cabbage with Tomato

A baked cabbage dish layered with tomato sauce and buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and tomato work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 333 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Escalloped Cabbage with Tomato

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 the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the hard mid rib.

  2. Wash the cabbage thoroughly.

Boil

  1. Boil salted water in a large kettle.

  2. Add cabbage pieces a few at a time to avoid reducing the temperature.

  3. Boil uncovered until tender, pushing the cabbage under water frequently.

  4. Drain and season the cabbage.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer cooled cabbage and tomato sauce alternately.

  2. Cover with buttered breadcrumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are 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 + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 and sweet when boiled.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that flavour the layers between the cabbage.
Butter
Helps the breadcrumbs brown and adds richness to the topping.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Add cabbage a few at a time. Adding too much cabbage at once drops the water temperature sharply, so it simmers slowly instead of returning to a boil and cooks unevenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, butter. 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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