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Creamed Cabbage

Creamed cabbage is a cooked cabbage dish finished with cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Chop the cabbage as for coleslaw.

  2. Stew the chopped cabbage in a covered saucepan until tender.

  3. Drain the cabbage and return it to the saucepan.

Finish with cream

  1. Add the cream, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Let the mixture simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Serve.

Skillet method

  1. Heat a deep skillet.

  2. Add sliced cabbage.

  3. Pour 2 cups of boiling water over the cabbage.

  4. Cover the skillet.

  5. Cook for 10 minutes.

  6. Pour off the water.

  7. Add 1 cup of rich milk.

  8. Stir in the flour mixed with a little milk.

  9. Season and cook briefly.

  10. Serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and turns tender and mild as it cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the cabbage.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a light sauce that clings to the cabbage.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour mixed with a little milk. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold liquid before it goes into hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Brief cooking then swells the starch granules and cooks out the raw floury taste.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, pepper, flour. 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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