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Red Cabbage, Stewed

A stewed dish of red cabbage cooked with onion, butter, gravy, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Red Cabbage, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the red cabbage thoroughly and cut the leaves apart.

  2. Trim off any hard, fibrous portions of the stalk.

  3. Peel and slice the onion.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onion.

  2. Add the cold gravy, black pepper, and salt to the saucepan.

  3. Add the cabbage and pour the vinegar over it.

  4. Cover the saucepan and cook gently for 1 hour or longer until tender, stirring occasionally.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 becomes tender through long, gentle cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps the cabbage keep its red color.
Cold gravy
Supplies liquid and savory flavor for the cabbage to simmer in.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onion at the start of cooking.

The step that matters

Cook gently until tender. Cabbage is tough when raw, and it needs a long, low, covered simmer to break down its fibers. Rushing with high heat can scorch the gravy on the bottom of the pan before the cabbage softens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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