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Cabbage Pudding

A steamed cabbage dish with spices, gooseberries, rice or breadcrumbs, eggs, and butter, wrapped in a leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Scald the cabbages and bruise them.

  2. Season with mace, ginger, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add green gooseberries or barberries and cold boiled rice or bread crumbs.

  4. Mix in small pieces of butter and the beaten egg yolks.

Cook

  1. Wrap the mixture in a large cabbage leaf and tie it in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

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. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbages
Form the bulk of the pudding and give its vegetal body once scalded and bruised.
Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds together when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling as it melts into it.
Cold boiled rice or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the filling hold its shape.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The pudding is boiled wrapped in a cabbage leaf and cloth, so it must be tied firmly. If it is loose, water can enter and the filling can break apart during the hour of boiling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, ginger, pepper, rice, butter, egg. 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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