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An Italian Dish of Cabbage

A baked casserole of boiled cabbage layered with buttered breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, and seasoned beef stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

An Italian Dish of 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.

  2. Drain the cabbage.

  3. Let the cabbage cool.

  4. Chop the cabbage coarsely.

  5. Season the chopped cabbage with salt and pepper.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a pudding dish.

  2. Add a layer of cabbage to the dish.

  3. Sprinkle buttered breadcrumbs over the cabbage.

  4. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the breadcrumbs.

  5. Repeat layering with more cabbage, breadcrumbs, and cheese until the dish is nearly full.

  6. Pour the seasoned beef stock over the layers.

  7. Bake the casserole at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 turns tender and sweet when boiled and baked.
Buttered bread crumbs
Add a crisp, golden topping and absorb some of the liquid between layers.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps brown the top.
Beef stock
Provides moisture and savory depth as it soaks through the layers while baking.

The step that matters

Draining and cooling the cabbage before layering. Cabbage holds a lot of water; if it goes into the dish wet, the casserole can turn soggy and the stock will pool instead of seasoning the layers evenly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, bread, parmesan cheese, beef):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, parmesan cheese, beef. 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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