Name: Bavarian Cabbage
Ingredients: 6 cups cut cabbage; ½ cup vinegar; 1 tablespoon salt; 1 tablespoon butter or bacon fat; 1 tablespoon onion, minced; 1 tablespoon sugar; ½ teaspoon pepper

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 ↓

Bavarian Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the onion in the butter or bacon fat.
Add the cabbage, vinegar, salt, sugar, and pepper.
Cook for 20 minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 soft as it cooks.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Butter or bacon fat: Carries flavour into the pan and helps the onion soften and brown lightly.
Onion: Adds aroma and savoury sweetness once fried in the fat.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Radishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, butter, sugar, 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.