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Stuffed Cabbage

A cabbage filled with a mixture of sausage meat, onion, pepper, salt, thyme, bread crumbs, and butter, simmered in ham liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the whole cabbage in a pot, tying a coarse net over it to keep it intact; do not remove the net until the next day.

  2. Bind a broad strip of muslin around the cabbage to prevent cracking while stuffing.

  3. Remove the stalk with a thin knife and dig out the heart to create space for the force-meat.

Stuff and stew

  1. Mix the chopped cabbage heart with cooked sausage meat, a little onion, pepper, salt, thyme, and bread crumbs.

  2. Stuff the cabbage with the mixture, remove the muslin, and tie it up firmly in a net bag.

  3. Place the stuffed cabbage in a pot and cover it with the liquor from the boiled ham; stew gently for one hour.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the cabbage, unbind it, and pour a cup of drawn butter over it.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the edible shell that holds the force-meat and becomes tender when stewed.
Cooked sausage meat
Adds savoury fat and richness to the force-meat filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the force-meat so it holds its shape.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the finished cabbage.

The step that matters

Stew gently for one hour. Gentle heat lets the cabbage soften and the filling cook through without the liquor boiling hard, which could break the cabbage apart and toughen the meat.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, pepper, thyme, bread, ham, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, pepper, thyme, bread, ham, 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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