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Creamed Cabbage

Cabbage cooked with milk, butter, eggs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage 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 ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first mixture

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, eggs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Slowly add vinegar until the mixture bubbles up once.

  4. Pour the mixture over the slaw cabbage.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Salt the cabbage

  1. Chop a head of cabbage finely, sprinkle it with a little salt, and let it stand.

Make the thickened sauce

  1. In a separate pan, mix flour, sugar, and milk or vinegar.

  2. Cook slowly until smooth and creamy.

  3. Add the egg to the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour it over the cabbage.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper before serving.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they set with heat and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, stable sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar or cream.
Vinegar or cream
Vinegar adds acidity; cream adds richness and softens the sharpness.
Cabbage
Forms the dish's bulk; salting draws out water, softening it slightly.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until smooth and creamy. Flour thickens only as its starch heats gently and evenly. Too much heat too fast can scorch the mixture or leave lumps, and eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble instead of blending smoothly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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