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To Stew Cabbage

A simple stew of cabbage cooked with butter, onion, vinegar, veal broth, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into strips and blanch them in boiling water.

  2. Drain the cabbage and place it in a stewpan.

Stew and serve

  1. Add butter, pepper, salt, onion, vinegar, veal broth, and the allspice.

  2. Stew gently until the cabbage is tender and the liquid is nearly reduced.

  3. Remove the allspice and onion before serving.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the stew and becomes tender and soft as it cooks slowly.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel to the stew.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the liquid as it stews.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter.
Veal broth
Supplies the cooking liquid and savoury depth that the cabbage absorbs as it reduces.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the cabbage is tender and the liquid is nearly reduced. Gentle heat lets the cabbage soften fully without breaking apart, while slow reduction concentrates the broth's flavour. Boiling hard can make the cabbage mushy and the liquid bitter or unevenly seasoned.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, butter, pepper, onion, vinegar, veal. 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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