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Baked Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish with eggs, butter, cream, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cook the cabbage as you would for boiled cabbage, then drain and let it cool.

  2. Chop the cooled cabbage finely.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped cabbage, beaten eggs, butter, pepper, salt, and cream. Stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and bake until brown.

  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.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Bind the chopped cabbage together and set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the baked mixture tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the surface brown in the buttered dish.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish, providing the vegetable body that the egg mixture holds together.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and bake until brown. Baking the egg and cream mixture too long or at too high heat can make it curdle and turn rubbery. Watching for light browning on top, rather than going by time alone, helps keep the custard tender.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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