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Baked Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish with milk, butter, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Baked Cabbage

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 ↓

Baked Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash the cabbage and soak it in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the cabbage in well-salted water for 30 minutes, then change the water.

  3. Once cooked, drain and chop the cabbage finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped cabbage with milk, ¼ cup butter, salt, pepper, and eggs.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a shallow dish and cover with bread crumbs moistened with remaining butter.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chopped cabbage and milk so the mixture sets firm when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the cabbage mixture as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the bread crumbs brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the cabbage mixture.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are brown. Baking until the crumbs are brown, not just warmed through, gives the topping its crisp texture and golden colour. Buttered crumbs brown through Maillard browning and caramelisation, so stopping early leaves the top pale and soft.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper, egg, bread. 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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