Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Cabbage, Hunters' Style

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Prepare the cabbage heads as in the previous recipe.

  2. Fill the centers with small sausages, roast chestnuts, and boned reed birds.

  3. Arrange the cabbage leaves and finish as instructed previously.

  4. Line a saucepan with thin slices of fat pork.

  5. Add the stuffed cabbage, carrots, onions, parsley, ham, and veal trimmings.

  6. Season with salt and pepper, then moisten with broth to cover.

Braise and glaze

  1. Cover and cook slowly until the cabbage is well cooked and glazed.

  2. Remove the cabbage, take out the strings, and plate them.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy into another saucepan, remove grease, and add Espagnole sauce.

  2. Reduce the sauce to the desired consistency.

  3. Cook marrow separately, slice it, and add to the sauce before serving 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 leaf wrapping that holds the filling and becomes tender and glazed during slow braising.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and rich, savory depth to the strained gravy as it reduces.
Boned reed birds
Provide the meat in the filling, adding savory flavor and richness to the cabbage.
Fat pork
Lines the pan, adding fat and savory flavor that enriches the braising liquid.
Marrow
Adds richness and a silky fattiness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to the desired consistency. Reducing concentrates flavor and thickens the gravy by evaporating water. Reducing too far makes it overly salty and sticky, while stopping too early leaves it thin.

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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes