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English Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

English Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into four pieces and remove the core.

  2. Soak the cabbage in salt water for 30 minutes.

Cook

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. Add the cabbage to the boiling water and cook uncovered for 30 minutes or until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the cabbage in a colander, season with pepper and butter, and chop finely.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender vegetable when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cooked cabbage a smoother mouthfeel and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until tender, not past it. Cabbage cooked too long breaks down, turning soft and watery and releasing sulfur-smelling compounds. Checking for tenderness at the stated time helps keep it firm enough to hold its shape.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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