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Escaloped Cabbage

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

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 ↓

Escaloped Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the chopped cabbage in a baking pan.

  2. Add a layer of stale bread crumbs, then sprinkle with salt, pepper, and butter pieces.

  3. Add another layer of cabbage, about 1 inch thick.

  4. Top with another layer of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and butter.

  5. Repeat until the pan is full, finishing with crumbs on top.

  6. Pour in the milk and bake 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.

  1. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + buttertop 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 and sweet as it bakes.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, helping the layers hold together and forming a crisp top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it melts through the layers.
Milk
Moistens the layers and bakes into a creamy, savory sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring in the milk. The milk must reach the layers evenly so the crumbs soften and the cabbage cooks through; too little leaves the dish dry, while the milk's proteins and sugars help the top brown during the hour in the oven.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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