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Creamed Cabbage

A cabbage dish cooked with butter, egg, cream, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the finely cut cabbage in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the cabbage.

  3. Place the cabbage in a covered kettle of boiling salted water for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Drain the cabbage again.

Make the creamed cabbage

  1. Add vinegar, salt, and pepper to the cabbage and bring to a boil.

  2. Beat the egg with the cream and melted butter.

  3. Mix the beaten egg mixture with the cabbage.

  4. Heat briefly over the fire.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 carries the sauce.
Egg
Thickens the cream mixture as it gently heats, giving the sauce body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the cabbage's sharpness.
Butter
Adds fat and smooth richness to the creamy sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the cabbage. Egg proteins thicken when heated but curdle if they get too hot or boil. Remove the pan from strong heat before adding the beaten egg and cream, then heat only briefly so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning grainy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cream, vinegar, 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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