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Cabbage, German Style

A cooked cabbage dish with onions, butter or lard, vinegar, and stock pot topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cabbage, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim and wash the cabbage, cut out the stalks, and shred the leaves.

Cook the cabbage

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter or lard over medium heat and add the chopped onions.

  2. Fry the onions lightly until they are translucent, without browning them.

  3. Add the shredded cabbage, season with salt and pepper, and cover the saucepan.

  4. Cook slowly for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Add the vinegar and cook until the moisture is reduced.

  6. Stir in a few spoonfuls of topping from the stock-pot and cook until the cabbage is thoroughly done.

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

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

  2. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into tender strands as it cooks slowly.
Butter or lard
Provides fat for frying the onions and carries flavour through the cabbage.
Onions
Soften without browning to add a mild, sweet base flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the cabbage and balances its sweetness.

The step that matters

Fry the onions without browning them. Browning the onions adds bitter, toasted notes that clash with the mild, sweet flavour the dish relies on. Gentle heat lets them turn translucent and release their sweetness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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