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A cabbage stew flavored with cumin, wine, and spices, finished with almond flour, raisins, and olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,866 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the tender part of the cabbage and drain the water.

Season and stew

  1. Season with cumin seeds, coarse sea salt, old wine, oil, black pepper, alisander, mint, coriander seeds, gravy, and oil.

  2. Stew the boiled cabbage in a saucepan with gravy, oil, wine, cumin seeds, black pepper, leeks, and green coriander.

  3. Add almond flour and sun-dried raisins to the mixture.

  4. Cook again with green olives.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mint + coriandertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together940 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,080 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + coriandertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 stew and absorbs the seasoning and cooking liquid as it simmers.
Almond flour
Thickens the stew slightly and adds a nutty body to the liquid.
Sun-dried raisins
Add concentrated sweetness that balances the savoury spices and wine.
Green olives
Contribute brininess and a sharp, savoury note to the finished stew.

Flavor stand-ins for the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cumin, wine, pepper, mint, coriander, onion):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cumin, wine, pepper, mint, coriander, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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