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Soup

Plain Cabbage Soup

A clear soup of bacon or pork back with cabbage and assorted root vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plain Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the bacon or pork back in a pot of water and skim until the soup is clear.

  2. Add the quartered cabbage and boil until both the meat and cabbage are very tender.

  3. Add the carrots, potatoes, leek, parsnip, parsley root, and celeriac to the pot.

  4. Season with salt and peppercorns, and continue to boil until all vegetables are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat and cabbage soup together.

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. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh, lean bacon or pork back
Provides the meat and the main savory flavor of the broth.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the soup and becomes tender and sweet as it simmers.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the broth slightly as they break down.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Celeriac
Adds a mild, earthy celery-like aroma and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth at the start. Foam and impurities rise as the meat first boils. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy soup.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, potato, leek, parsnip, parsley):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, potato, leek, parsnip, parsley. 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.

More cabbage soup recipes

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