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Creamed Cabbage

Sliced cabbage cooked until tender with butter, seasoning, and heavy cream stirred in before serving.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the sliced cabbage in a saucepan with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Add black pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  3. Cover and cook until the cabbage is tender.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the heavy cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the cabbage.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a silky, creamy texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the heavy cream just before serving. Cream held at a hot simmer for long can separate or turn thin and grainy. Adding it last, off the heat or on low, keeps it smooth and fully blended into the cabbage.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, cream. 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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