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Cabbage Soljp

A hearty cabbage soup with pork, beef, potatoes, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Cabbage Soljp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters, remove the core and stale leaves, and slice it into fine strips.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the cabbage, butter, salt, and pepper; cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until tender.

Simmer with meat and potatoes

  1. Add the quartered potatoes, pork, beef, and water to the pan.

  2. Cover the pan and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the meat, chop it coarsely, and return it to the pan.

  4. Heat again and serve in a hot tureen with the grated Parmesan cheese in a separate dish.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 soup and becomes tender and sweet as it cooks.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during simmering, adding body and thickening the broth.
Pork
Releases flavor and richness into the broth while becoming tender over long simmering.
Beef
Adds savory depth to the broth and becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cabbage soften and carry flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the cabbage until tender before adding liquid. Cabbage cooked gently in butter first softens and releases its sugars and aroma. Adding water too early can dilute these and leave the flavor flat.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, potato, pork, beef, parmesan cheese):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, potato, pork, beef, parmesan cheese. 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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