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Cabbage with Rice

A simple dish of simmered rice and sliced cabbage cooked with butter, spices, and water, topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice and cabbage

  1. Wash the rice and simmer it in hot water with the sliced cabbage for about 1 hour.

  2. Strain the rice and cabbage, then place them in a stewpan with butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Toss the mixture in the butter over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes without letting it brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Add water or stock and let it stew until tender.

  2. Serve hot, topped with grated cheese.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the bulk of the dish and absorbs liquid as it stews, becoming tender.
Cabbage
Adds moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour as it softens.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the seasonings as the mixture is tossed in the pan.
Grated cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness on top of the finished dish.

The step that matters

Toss without browning. Tossing over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes keeps the butter and starches from browning. Browning would change the mild, delicate flavour the dish depends on.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, pepper, nutmeg, cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper, nutmeg, cheese. 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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