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Stuffed Turnip Cabbage

A dish of parboiled turnip cabbages stuffed with veal forcemeat and herbs, simmered in veal gravy and Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Turnip Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbages

  1. Peel and wash the Turnip-Cabbages.

  2. Parboil them until nearly cooked.

  3. Immerse in cold water.

  4. Drain.

  5. Cut off the tops.

  6. Scoop out half of the center of each cabbage.

Stuff and cook

  1. Chop the removed part finely.

  2. Mix the chopped cabbage with raw veal forcemeat, fine herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped chives.

  3. Stuff the scooped-out cabbages with the mixture.

  4. Arrange them in a buttered flat saucepan.

  5. Moisten with a little veal gravy.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Reduce heat and cook slowly until tender, basting occasionally.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy into another saucepan.

  2. Skim off the grease.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of Espagnole sauce.

  4. Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency.

  5. Pour it over the stuffed Turnip-Cabbages.

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. Turnip + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + chivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + chivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip-cabbages
Form the edible shell that holds the stuffing while it cooks until tender.
Raw veal forcemeat
Provides a moist, binding filling that sets as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the pan and adds richness and browning to the cooking vessel.
Veal gravy
Moistens the cabbages during slow cooking and forms the base of the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body, depth and savoury flavour to the reduced sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the gravy through evaporation. Too little reduction leaves it thin and watery; too much makes it overly salty and sticky.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, veal, pepper, nutmeg, chive, butter, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, veal, pepper, nutmeg, chive, butter, sauce. 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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