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Cabbage Boiled

Cabbage boiled in salted water, then simmered with milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the cabbage thoroughly to remove insects.

  2. Boil the large drumhead cabbage for 1 hour, or the green savoy cabbage for 20 minutes, in salted water.

  3. Remove the cabbage from the water and drain in a colander.

Make the creamy version

  1. For a creamy version, cut the cabbage finely and place it in a hot skillet.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the cabbage, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the water, add ½ pint of milk, and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in 1 large teaspoon of flour mixed with milk, add salt and pepper, and serve once it boils.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Cabbage + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long boiling.
Milk
Adds moisture and a mild, creamy texture to the cooked cabbage.
Wheat or rice flour
Thickens the milk into a light sauce that coats the cabbage.

The step that matters

Boil the cabbage for the full time. Cabbage needs long, steady cooking to soften its tough fibres. Stopping early leaves it firm and bitter-tasting, while the correct time for the variety gives a tender result.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, wheat, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, wheat, pepper. 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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