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Stuffed Turnip Cabbage

A dish of parboiled turnip cabbages stuffed with veal 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 them in cold water.

  4. Drain the water.

  5. Cut off the tops of each cabbage.

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

  7. Chop the scooped center finely.

Stuff and braise

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

  2. Stuff the scooped cabbages with the mixture.

  3. Arrange the stuffed cabbages in a buttered flat saucepan.

  4. Moisten with a little veal gravy.

  5. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  6. Reduce the heat.

  7. Cook slowly until tender.

  8. Baste occasionally with gravy.

Finish the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy into another saucepan.

  2. Skim off the grease.

  3. Add two spoonfuls of Espagnole sauce.

  4. Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency.

  5. Pour the sauce over the stuffed 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.
Raw veal (forced meat)
Provides the meaty filling that sets firm as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cabbages brown lightly in the pan.
Veal gravy
Supplies moisture for slow braising and flavors the cabbages.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savory depth to the final sauce when reduced.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency. Reducing concentrates flavor and thickens the gravy by evaporating water. Stop too early and the sauce is thin; reduce too far and it becomes salty and overly thick.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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