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Stuffed Cabbage

A dish of cabbage leaves stuffed with sausage, chestnuts, and herbs, simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim the outer leaves from the cabbage heads.

  2. Parboil the cabbages for 20 minutes, then immerse in cold water and drain.

  3. Cut out the stalk and carefully separate the leaves from the center.

Stuff and tie

  1. Prepare the stuffing with sausage meat, salt, pepper, spices, fine herbs, chopped egg yolks, and roasted chestnuts.

  2. Fill the center of the cabbages with the stuffing and reshape the leaves.

  3. Cover the opening with a slice of fat pork and tie the cabbages with string.

Braise and serve

  1. Line a large saucepan with thin slices of pork and place the cabbages inside, opening on top.

  2. Garnish with sliced carrot, studded onions, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then cover with broth.

  4. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook slowly until the cabbages are tender.

  5. Carefully remove the cabbages, discard the string, and place on a serving dish.

  6. Strain the gravy into another saucepan, remove excess grease, reduce, and thicken lightly.

  7. Pour the gravy over the cabbages before serving.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  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 outer leaves that wrap the stuffing and become tender during slow cooking.
Sausage meat
Provides fat and savory body to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the stuffing with richness and help bind it together.
Roasted chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mildly sweet, nutty texture to the stuffing.
Broth
Gently cooks the cabbages and becomes the base of the gravy.
Fat pork
Adds fat that seals the opening and enriches the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cook slowly after boiling. Once boiling, keeping the heat low and the pot covered lets the tough cabbage leaves and the stuffing become tender without drying or toughening the meat.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, meat, pepper, egg, pork, carrot, onion):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chestnutthe original
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, meat, pepper, egg, pork, carrot, onion. 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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