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Cabbage Soup

A simple soup made with cabbage, butter, milk, and bread.

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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put 3 pints of water into a saucepan and bring it to a boil.

  2. Wash the cabbage in cold water and trim off the outer dead leaves.

  3. Cut the cabbage into pieces, similar to how you would for a salad, but not too small.

Make the soup

  1. Once the water is boiling, add the cabbage.

  2. Add 2 ounces of butter, pepper, and salt, and let it boil for 1 hour.

  3. Pour in ¾ pint of milk and let it boil again.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast the slice of bread slightly on both sides over the fire.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into dice-sized pieces and place them in a hot soup tureen.

  3. Pour the cabbage soup over the bread in the tureen and serve.

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 + breadtop 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 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 body of the soup, becoming tender as it simmers in the water.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the flavour of the broth.
Bread
Soaks up the broth in the tureen, giving the dish body and a toasted aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it is boiled hard for a long time. Adding it after the long simmer and bringing it back only to a boil keeps it smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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