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Tuenip-cabbage, German Style

A German-style turnip-cabbage dish simmered with onions, butter, broth, and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tuenip-cabbage, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the turnip-cabbages.

  2. Parboil them for 5 minutes, then drain.

Make the dish

  1. Finely slice the onions and place them in a saucepan with butter.

  2. Fry the onions lightly, then add the turnip-cabbages.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then moisten with broth.

  4. Cover and cook until tender, allowing the broth to reduce.

  5. Add butter or Allemande sauce and a little veal gravy.

  6. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  7. Before serving, add finely-chopped parsley.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 main body of the dish, becoming tender as they cook in broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and lightly brown in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the frying and finishing stages.
Broth
Moistens the vegetables and, as it reduces, concentrates flavour around them.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until tender, allowing the broth to reduce. If the lid is left off too early or heat is too high, the broth reduces before the turnip-cabbages are tender and the dish can dry out or scorch. Gentle, covered cooking keeps moisture while the vegetables soften.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, cabbage, onion, butter, pepper, veal, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, cabbage, onion, butter, pepper, veal, parsley. 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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