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Delicate Cabbage

Boiled cabbage seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Delicate Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove any defective leaves from the cabbage and quarter it.

  2. Soak the cabbage in cold water for several hours, then drain.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the cabbage in a pot and cover it with boiling water.

  2. Boil the cabbage for about 45 minutes until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Add salt 10-15 minutes before removing from heat.

  4. Transfer the cabbage to a colander and press out excess water.

  5. Season with butter and pepper before serving.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the dish; boiling softens its fibres until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the cooked cabbage and carrying flavour.

The step that matters

Pressing out excess water. Cabbage holds a lot of water that leaches out during boiling. Pressing it out in a colander keeps the cooked cabbage from tasting watery and lets the butter and pepper cling to it.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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