Name: Russian Cabbage Soup
Ingredients: 6 to 8 white cabbages, shredded; ½ pound pearl barley; ¼ pound butter (or oil); 1 handful coarse sea salt; 2 pounds mutton; 2 quarts Kvas or broth; 3 tablespoons thick cream; 2 artichokes, quartered

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Russian Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

Salt the mutton for 36 hours, then press and cut into small pieces.

Cook the soup

In a pot, boil the shredded cabbage in Kvas or broth.
Add the pearl barley and mutton to the pot after the cabbage has boiled.
Add the quartered artichokes and cook until everything is tender.

Serve

Serve the soup and pour 3 tablespoons of thick cream over each serving.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cabbage + barleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together124 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cabbage + artichoketop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together31 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Barley + artichoketop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Barley + muttontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the main meat flavor and richness to the broth.
White cabbages: Form the bulk of the soup and become tender in the liquid.
Pearl barley: Thickens the soup slightly and adds a chewy texture as it softens.
Thick cream: Adds richness and a smooth, mild finish to each serving.
Kvas or broth: Forms the cooking liquid that carries the flavor of the whole soup.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, butter, mutton, cream, artichoke):

Leekfits better
Asparagusfits better
Spinachfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, butter, mutton, cream, artichoke. 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.