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Cabbage Cake

A baked casserole of boiled cabbage, minced beef or mutton, bacon, and bread crumbs, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cabbage Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the cabbage until tender, then drain and chop it finely.

  2. Butter the inside of a pie dish and dust it with bread crumbs.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer chopped cabbage about 1 inch thick in the dish.

  2. Add a layer of minced cold beef or mutton, then repeat layers until the dish is nearly full, finishing with cabbage.

  3. Place the bacon rashers on top and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through and bacon is cooked.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a plate and pour brown gravy around it.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  4. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Cabbage + breadtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 casserole and, once cooked, gives it a soft, tender texture.
Cold beef or mutton
Provides the savory, meaty filling layered between the cabbage.
Bacon
Renders fat as it bakes, adding savory flavor and richness to the top layer.
Bread crumbs
Dusted on the buttered dish to help prevent the casserole from sticking.

The step that matters

Bake until the bacon is cooked and the dish is heated through. The layers are already cooked, so the goal is to heat them evenly. Bacon needs enough time to render and crisp fully, and the moderate oven keeps the meat from drying out before the centre is hot.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, beef. 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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