Name: Wirsing, or Savoy Cabbage
Ingredients: Savoy cabbage; beef broth; butter; coarse sea salt; nutmeg

Why it works: Cabbage and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 187 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Wirsing, or Savoy Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the Savoy cabbage into small pieces, removing the thick stems.
Boil the cabbage in water for 10 minutes, then drain well and press out all the water.
Add beef broth, butter, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Cook slowly for 1 hour.

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.

Cabbage + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together187 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together872 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,495 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).