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Corned Beef and Cabbage

A boiled corned beef served with cabbage, optionally accompanied by tomato or horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the corned beef in cold water.

  2. Place the beef in a large kettle and cover it with cold water.

  3. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage, cut it into quarters, and soak in cold water for 1 hour.

Cook

  1. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. After 2 hours, add the cabbage to the kettle and simmer for an additional 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, place the beef in the center of a large dish with the cabbage arranged around it.

  2. Serve with tomato or horseradish.

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. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

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

  3. Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 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

Corned beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Cabbage
Absorbs flavour from the cooking liquid and becomes tender as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. A gentle simmer, rather than a rolling boil, keeps the corned beef tender and prevents the meat fibres from toughening.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato. 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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