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Cabbage and Milk

A simple dish of cabbage simmered in milk, thickened with flour and seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter.

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 ↓

Cabbage and Milk

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the cabbage into small pieces.

  2. Boil the cabbage in milk for 30 minutes.

  3. Thicken the milk with flour.

  4. Add pepper, salt, and butter to the mixture.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 becomes tender as it simmers in the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks the cabbage and forms the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a creamy sauce that coats the cabbage.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with flour. Flour must be mixed in evenly so it can hydrate and gelatinize with the hot milk; adding it in clumps leaves lumps and an uneven sauce.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, 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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