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To Boil Cabbage with Bacon

A simple boiled cabbage dish flavored with bacon and optional red pepper.

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 ↓

To Boil Cabbage with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters and rinse well.

  2. Soak the cabbage in salted water for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. About 1 hour before serving, drain the cabbage.

Cook

  1. Place the cabbage in a pot with the boiling bacon.

  2. Add red pepper to taste.

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).

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 becomes tender and mild as it simmers.
Bacon
Releases fat and smoky flavor into the cooking liquid, seasoning the cabbage.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the soaking water so the cabbage absorbs flavor before cooking.

The step that matters

Soaking the cabbage in salted water. Soaking in salted water seasons the cabbage from within and helps it hold its shape and flavor during long cooking, so it should not be skipped or rushed.

“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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