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Hungarian Cabbage

A sautéed cabbage dish flavored with butter, onion, vinegar, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,001 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hungarian Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the red cabbage into long, thin strips.

  2. Boil the cabbage in water for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the cabbage.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion.

  2. Add the cabbage, vinegar, salt, and paprika to the saucepan.

  3. Cover and stew on low heat for 20 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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Provides the bulk of the dish and becomes tender through boiling and stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flavour of the sautéed onion.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and helps the cabbage keep its colour.

The step that matters

Stew on low heat, covered. Gentle, covered cooking keeps the cabbage moist and lets it soften evenly without scorching in the pan. Too much heat can dry out the cabbage or burn the bottom of the pan.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, 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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