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Stuffed Cabbage, Hunters' Style

A cabbage dish stuffed with sausages, chestnuts, and boned reed birds, simmered with broth, herbs, and Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage, Hunters' Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the core of the cabbage and fill the center with small sausages, roast chestnuts, and boned reed birds.

  2. Arrange the cabbage leaves and place them in a saucepan lined with thin slices of fat pork.

  3. Garnish the cabbage with carrots, onions, parsley, and trimmings of ham and veal.

  4. Season the cabbage with salt and pepper, then moisten it with broth until covered.

Braise

  1. Cover the saucepan with a lid and cook slowly until the cabbage is well cooked and glazed.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the cabbage from the saucepan, take out the strings, and plate the cabbage.

  2. Strain the gravy into another saucepan, remove the grease, and add the Espagnole sauce, reducing it to the desired consistency.

  3. Cook the marrow separately, slice it, and add it to the sauce to serve with the cabbage.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Cabbage + chestnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Chestnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 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 wrapping leaves that enclose the filling and turn tender and sweet during slow braising.
Fat pork
Lines the pan and slowly releases fat, keeping the cabbage moist and adding savory flavor.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and concentrated savory flavor to the strained gravy as it reduces.
Marrow
Adds richness and a soft, fatty texture to the sauce served with the cabbage.
Reed birds
Provide the main meat filling, flavoring the cabbage as they cook inside the leaves.

The step that matters

Cook slowly with the lid on. Slow, covered cooking braises the cabbage until tender without drying it or burning the lining of fat and vegetables, so the leaves stay intact and the gravy stays flavorful.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pork, carrot, onion, parsley, ham, veal):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Chestnutthe original
  4. Peasfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pork, carrot, onion, parsley, ham, veal. 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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