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Escaloped Cabbage

A baked casserole of sliced cabbage layered with bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, 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. Chop the cabbage as for slaw.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer cabbage in a baking pan.

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

  3. Repeat with another layer of cabbage, then more bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and butter until the pan is full.

  4. Top with crumbs and pour in 1 cup of milk.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one 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 softens as it bakes into tender layers.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and butter, helping the layers hold together and brown on top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides moisture that softens the cabbage and soaks into the crumbs as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour in the milk over the top layer. The milk needs to reach the lower layers through the crumbs so the cabbage cooks evenly and the dish does not dry out during the long bake.

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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