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 ↓
Feied Cabbage
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cabbage
Boil the whole cabbage with salt until nearly tender.
Let the cabbage cool, then slice it.
Fry and serve
Cut the bacon and red pepper into small pieces and fry them.
Add the sliced cabbage to the frying pan and cook for about 10 minutes.
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.
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Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,081 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
- Cabbage
- Forms the bulk of the dish, and cooking softens its texture and mellows its sweetness.
- Bacon
- Its fat cooks the dish and its browned bits add savoury flavour.
- Red pepper
- Adds heat and a sharp aroma to the frying fat.
The step that matters
Boil the cabbage until nearly tender before frying. Partly cooking the cabbage softens its cell walls so it finishes evenly in the pan. If it is overboiled, it becomes waterlogged and limp, which stops it browning when fried.
“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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