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Cabbages, with Bacon

A boiled cabbage dish topped with crispy bacon, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Cabbages, with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the core.

  2. In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil.

Cook

  1. Add the cabbage and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes.

  2. While the cabbage cooks, fry the bacon in a skillet until crispy.

Serve

  1. Drain the cabbage and place it on a serving dish.

  2. Crumble the bacon over the cabbage and season with salt and pepper.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Becomes tender through boiling, forming the main body of the dish.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor, and crisps in the skillet for texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the cabbage until tender. Cabbage cooked too briefly stays firm and bitter, while overcooking releases sulfur compounds that cause a strong smell and soft, watery texture. Checking tenderness during the 10-15 minutes helps keep it sweet and pleasantly textured.

“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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