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Savoury Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish cooked with bacon, salt, water, bicarbonate of soda, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,397 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Savoury 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

  1. Wash and trim the cabbage, removing the stalk, and cut it into shreds.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips and mix with the cabbage. Season with coarse sea salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a buttered paper bag with water and bicarbonate of soda.

  2. Seal the bag securely and place it on a wire rack.

  3. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

  4. Serve the cabbage 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 + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Young cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into tender shreds as it steams in the bag.
Streaky bacon
Its fat renders into the cabbage, adding savoury richness and flavour.
Bicarbonate of soda
Raises the alkalinity of the cabbage, which helps it soften and keeps its colour bright.

The step that matters

Sealing the bag. A tightly sealed bag traps the steam from the water and cabbage so the vegetable cooks evenly in its own moisture. A loose seal lets steam escape, leaving the cabbage drier and less tender.

“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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