Skip to main content
Main

Ladies' Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish mixed with eggs, butter, milk, and seasonings.

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.

  2. Quarter the cabbage and let it cool completely.

  3. Chop the cabbage finely.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped cabbage with the beaten eggs, butter, pepper, salt, and milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and bake covered at 350°F (175°C) until very hot.

  3. Remove the cover and brown the top.

Serve

  1. If well buttered, turn the cabbage onto a hot dish and pour the drawn butter over it.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chopped cabbage together and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture so it bakes into a soft, custardy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the pudding release from the dish.
Cabbage
Forms the body of the pudding, giving bulk and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Let the cabbage cool completely before mixing. Cabbage holds a lot of water. If it is still warm or wet when mixed with the eggs, the mixture can turn thin and watery, and the eggs may begin to set unevenly before baking.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes