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Stuffed Cabbage

A cabbage filled with pork, beef, onion, eggs, flour, and milk, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut out the root end of the cabbage in the shape of a lid and scoop out the inside, leaving thick walls.

  2. Wash the cabbage thoroughly.

  3. Mince or grind the pork and beef together.

  4. In a bowl, combine the meat, onion, pepper, salt, eggs, flour, and enough milk to shape into a loaf.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the cavity of the cabbage tightly with the meat mixture and place the lid back on.

  2. Tie the cabbage securely in a linen cloth.

  3. Boil slowly in a large kettle covered with water for 4 to 5 hours, depending on the size.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, slicing as desired, with hot butter for sauce.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Pork and beef
Provide the main body of the filling, giving it richness and a meaty texture.
Eggs
Bind the meat mixture so it holds together when sliced.
Flour
Helps the filling hold its shape and absorb some moisture during cooking.
Hard cabbage
Acts as the edible vessel that encloses the filling while it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for the full time. Long, gentle simmering lets the dense meat filling cook through to the centre without toughening. Cutting in too early or boiling too hard can leave the middle underdone or the meat tough.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, onion, pepper, egg, flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, onion, pepper, egg, flour, 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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