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To Boil Corned Pork

A boiled corned pork with cabbage, seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Corned Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the pork

  1. Rub the pork with coarse sea salt and let it sit for 2 days.

Cook

  1. Boil the pork slowly in plenty of water, skimming regularly.

  2. When the pork is about half done, add the cleaned and quartered cabbage to the pot.

  3. Ensure both the pork and cabbage are thoroughly cooked and tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain and squeeze out the water from the cabbage before serving.

  2. Remove the skin from the pork and sprinkle cayenne pepper on the outside.

  3. Serve with mustard.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + cabbagetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the main meat, which the salt cure seasons and firms before cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the pork, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat through its surface.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness that softens as it cooks in the pot liquid.

The step that matters

Ensure both the pork and cabbage are thoroughly cooked and tender. Pork needs to reach full doneness to be safe, while cabbage added at the halfway point can overcook and turn mushy if left too long. Checking both by texture keeps each at its best.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, cabbage, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, cabbage, 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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