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Escalloped Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Escalloped Cabbage

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the chopped cabbage in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the cabbage in a colander and place it in two baking dishes.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour until blended.

  2. Add the milk and stir constantly until it boils.

  3. Stir in the chopped hard boiled eggs, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the cabbage and sprinkle with moistened bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 after boiling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps carry flavor, with extra butter moistening the crumbs for browning.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens with the flour as it boils.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the sauce, giving it a softer texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux until it boils. Add the milk gradually while stirring constantly so the flour stays smooth; lumps form if the mixture is left to sit and the sauce thickens unevenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, pepper, bread. 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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