Name: Spring Cabbage Stewed
Ingredients: 1 small cabbage; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 cup heavy cream; ¼ teaspoon ground mace

Why it works: Cream and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,009 recipes. The science ↓

Spring Cabbage Stewed

Ingredients

1 small cabbage
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon ground mace

Directions

Cook the cabbage

Cut the cabbage into small pieces and place in a saucepan.
Cover with boiling water and cook until nearly tender.
Add salt and continue cooking until fully tender.
Drain the cabbage in a colander.

Make the sauce and serve

In a separate pot, make a thick cream sauce by heating the cream.
Stir in the mace.
Add the drained cabbage to the sauce.
Bring to a boil.
Serve immediately.

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.

Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,009 recipes
Cabbage + macetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together415 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cabbage + creamtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together778 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 dish and becomes tender as it cooks.
Heavy cream: Forms the rich, thick sauce that coats the cabbage and adds fat and moisture.