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Spanish Red Cabbage

A Spanish dish of shredded red cabbage cooked with bacon, tomatoes, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spanish Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the cabbage finely.

  2. Fry the bacon in a large frying pan until crisp.

  3. Add the shredded cabbage.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour in the hot water.

  6. Cover and cook for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the tomatoes.

  2. Heat everything thoroughly.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into a tender, braised texture as it cooks.
Bacon
Its rendered fat adds savoury richness to the cabbage as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, tangy note that brightens the sweet cabbage.

The step that matters

Cover and cook for 1 hour. Red cabbage is tough when raw, so it needs slow, covered cooking with added liquid to break down its fibres and become tender. Too little liquid or heat can leave it dry or hard.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Cauliflowerfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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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