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Boiled Cabbage

Boiled cabbage is a simple dish of cabbage cooked in salted water, seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Quarter the large cabbage or cut small cabbages in half.

  2. Remove outer and bad leaves. Check for insects and wash the cabbage.

  3. Soak the cabbage in cold water for 30 minutes.

Boil

  1. Place the cabbage in a covered pot with plenty of boiling salted water. Cover the pot.

  2. If the cabbage is old, boil for 10–15 minutes.

  3. Drain the cabbage and replace with fresh boiling water.

  4. Add salt and boil until tender.

  5. When the stalk is tender, drain and press out excess water.

Season and serve

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and salt. Omit butter if boiling with meat.

  2. To reduce odor, add pieces of charcoal to the pot or boil in equal parts milk and water.

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 + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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; boiling softens its tough leaves and stalk until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat coating to the cooked cabbage.

The step that matters

Drain and press out excess water. Cabbage holds a lot of water after boiling. Pressing it out keeps the cabbage from tasting diluted and helps it hold seasoning, butter, and pepper evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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