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Stuffed Cabbage

A cabbage head filled with a meat and breadcrumb mixture, boiled and served with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the stalk from the cabbage and hollow out enough of the center to fit the force meat.

  2. Wash the cavity with the reserved egg yolk.

  3. Fill the cavity with the force meat mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the cabbage in a cloth and boil for three hours or more.

  2. Serve on a platter with drawn butter and garnish with parsley.

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. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Force meat
Forms the savoury filling that fills the cabbage cavity and cooks through as it boils.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and help it set firm during cooking.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, keeping the filling tender rather than dense.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.

The step that matters

Tie the cabbage in a cloth and boil for three hours or more. The cloth holds the stuffed head together while it simmers, and a long, gentle boil lets the filling cook through and the cabbage soften evenly. Cutting it too early or boiling too hard can cause the filling to break up.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, meat, bread, nutmeg, pepper, marjoram, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, meat, bread, nutmeg, pepper, marjoram, 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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