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Cabbage Soup

A cabbage soup made with water, milk, eggs, butter, bread, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Slice 1-2 leaves of the cabbage and add to 3 pints of water.

  2. Cook until the cabbage is fully tender.

  3. Remove all but the sliced cabbage from the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 3 pints of warm milk, 3 eggs, butter, salt, and pepper to the pot.

  2. Add the sliced bread and bring to a boil.

  3. 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. 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

Cabbage
Provides the main vegetable body and mild flavor of the soup as it softens in the water.
Eggs
Add richness and body, thickening the soup slightly as they heat through.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness that softens the broth.
Bread
Soaks up the liquid and gives the soup a thicker, more substantial texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder, smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil after adding the milk and eggs. Once milk and eggs are in, boiling can curdle the milk and make the eggs grainy or scrambled. Keep the heat controlled so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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