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Turnip-cabbage, German Style

A German-style dish of turnip-cabbage cooked with onions, butter, broth, and seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and parsley.

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 ↓

Turnip-cabbage, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the turnip-cabbages.

  2. Parboil them for 5 minutes, then drain.

Cook

  1. Finely slice the onions and sauté them in a saucepan with butter until lightly fried.

  2. Add the turnip-cabbages to the saucepan and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Moisten with broth, cover, and cook until tender, allowing the broth to reduce.

  4. Stir in the butter or Allemande sauce and veal gravy, then simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. 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
Sweetness and savory depth from being softened and lightly fried in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the sauté and finish.
Broth
Provides moisture for braising the turnip-cabbages until tender.
Veal gravy
Adds savory, meaty depth and body to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the turnip-cabbages until tender while the broth reduces. If the heat is too high or the pan is left uncovered for too long, the broth can evaporate before the vegetables soften, leaving them dry or scorched. Gentle, covered cooking keeps moisture in while the turnips become tender.

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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