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Cabbage Sprouts and Eggs

A dish of boiled cabbage sprouts served with a buttered egg omelette and soaked crustless bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Sprouts and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cabbage sprouts until tender, then drain well and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Place slices of crustless bread in a deep dish and soak them in boiling water; then drain.

Cook and assemble

  1. In a heated pan, melt the butter and prepare a soft omelette with the eggs.

  2. Cover the soaked bread with the omelette, then lay the sprouts on top.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft omelette that forms the top layer and binds the dish.
Crustless bread
Soaks up boiling water to become soft and form the base layer.
Cabbage sprouts
Cooked until tender, then laid on top to add bulk and vegetable flavour.
Butter
Melted in the pan to cook the omelette and add richness.

The step that matters

Prepare a soft omelette with the eggs. Eggs set quickly and turn firm or rubbery over high heat. Cooking gently over moderate heat keeps the omelette soft so it sits neatly over the soaked bread.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, egg, butter. 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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