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Cabbage with Cream

A simple cabbage dish cooked in boiling water, milk, and flour, seasoned with 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 with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut it finely.

  2. Heat a deep skillet over medium heat and add the cut cabbage.

Cook

  1. Pour the boiling water over the cabbage and cover tightly.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the water and add the milk (or part milk and cream).

Thicken and serve

  1. When it boils, stir in the flour moistened with a little milk.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and serve as soon as it comes to a boil.

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 as it cooks in the covered pan.
Milk
Provides moisture and a creamy, mellow texture that coats the cabbage.
Wheat or rice flour
Thickens the milk into a light sauce when stirred in and brought to a boil.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour-milk mixture. Flour must be smoothly moistened before it goes in, otherwise it clumps. Once it reaches a boil, starch granules swell and thicken the liquid, so the sauce sets properly only when the mixture is fully heated.

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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