Skip to main content
Main

Ladies' Cabbage

A baked cabbage casserole with eggs, butter, milk, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ladies' Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Boil the cabbage in two waters until tender, then let it cool completely.

  2. Chop the cabbage finely.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped cabbage, beaten eggs, melted butter, pepper, salt, and milk. Stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

  3. Sprinkle with fine bread crumbs.

  4. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  5. Uncover and brown quickly.

  6. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the casserole and gives it its main body and mild flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the casserole together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the top brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the egg custard set softly rather than dry.

The step that matters

Uncover and brown quickly. Baking covered traps steam and keeps the top pale. Uncovering briefly lets surface moisture evaporate so the bread crumbs toast, but a long exposure can dry the casserole out.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes