Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Cabbage Lettuce with Gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cabbage
Trim off the loose outside leaves from the cabbage lettuces.
Boil the heads in water for 5 minutes.
Drain the heads and press gently to remove excess water.
Cut the lettuces in halves.
Arrange them on a dish.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Tie the two halves together.
Braise the cabbage
Place them in a saucepan.
Cover the saucepan with 4 cups of water.
Add the beef, onion, mace, and bay leaf.
Cover the saucepan.
Cook gently for 1 hour.
Carefully lift the lettuces with a skimmer.
Cut the string.
Arrange them neatly on a dish.
Press them lightly together with a spoon.
Make the gravy and serve
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the flour and cook briefly.
Boil the cooking stock.
Reduce it until it is 2 cups.
Add the reduced stock to the butter and flour mixture.
Stir until it boils.
Strain the gravy over the lettuce leaves.
Serve garnished with squares of toasted bread.
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.
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Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together622 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,081 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,001 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,562 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
- Cabbage lettuces
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through gentle simmering.
- Beef or leftover meat
- Adds savory meaty flavor to the cooking stock that later becomes the gravy.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries the flour to form the base of the gravy.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked with butter.
The step that matters
Make the roux before adding the stock. Cooking the flour briefly in melted butter cooks out its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding the stock all at once to raw flour can leave lumps.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, beef, onion, butter, flour, pepper):
- Tarragonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, beef, onion, butter, flour, 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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