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Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, optionally cooked with salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Remove the outside leaves from the cabbage.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the stalk.

  3. Soak the cabbage in cold water for 1 hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the cabbage in boiling salted water for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Add baking soda to hasten cooking and reduce odor.

  3. For German style, add a small piece of salt pork to the boiling water.

  4. Drain the cabbage and serve, or chop and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Cabbage + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

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

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Is the main vegetable; cooking softens its tough fibers into a tender texture.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which speeds softening and helps reduce sulfur odor during cooking.
Salt pork
Adds savory, fatty flavor to the cooking water for the German style variation.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the chopped cabbage for a smooth, savory finish.

The step that matters

Cook the cabbage in boiling salted water for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Cabbage cooked too briefly stays firm and bitter-tasting, while overcooking releases more sulfur compounds, causing strong odor and a mushy texture. Checking for tenderness during the given range helps get it right.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, 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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