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Escalloped Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish layered with white sauce, cheese, paprika, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the cabbage in water with baking soda for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and cover the cabbage with fresh water, then boil until tender.

  3. Chop the drained cabbage and layer it in a baking dish.

Make the white sauce

  1. Make a white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and whisking in milk.

  2. Season the sauce to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour a layer of white sauce over the cabbage.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese over the sauce.

  3. Add another layer of cabbage.

  4. Add more white sauce.

  5. Add paprika.

  6. Add grated cheese.

  7. Add brown bread crumbs.

  8. Dot the top with butter.

  9. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well browned.

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

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

  4. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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 when boiled and baked.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the cabbage soften during boiling.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce that binds the layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds fat for flavor and browning on top.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Boil the cabbage until tender, then drain well. Cabbage left under-cooked stays tough in the baked dish, while excess water left in it dilutes the white sauce and makes the casserole watery.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, pepper, cheese, 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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