Name: Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 whole cabbage; 1 nice ham; Bread crumbs; Cayenne pepper; Whole spices (to taste); Black pepper (to taste); Celery seeds (to taste); 2 hard boiled egg yolks; Butter

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the whole cabbage, then tie it in a towel tightly.
Drop the cabbage into boiling water with the ham for 20 minutes.
Remove the cabbage and plunge it in cold water to cool.
Untie the cloth and carefully remove the heart of the cabbage, saving the piece you cut out.
Make a dressing by mixing the heart with bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, whole spices, black pepper, celery seeds, egg yolks, and butter.
If using a steamer, place the cabbage over boiling water for 30 minutes, fitting the piece of stalk back in place.
If no steamer, wrap the cabbage in the towel and boil for 15 minutes.

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.

Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, pepper, celery, egg, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Mustardfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, pepper, celery, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.