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Cabbage Soup with Stock

A cabbage soup made with water, beef broth, butter, and sugar, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cabbage Soup with Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and trim the outer leaves of the cabbage, then chop it finely.

Cook

  1. Place the chopped cabbage in a stew pan with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil until tender.

  2. Add 4 cups of beef broth, salt, and pepper, then boil again.

  3. Before serving, stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the soup and becomes tender as it simmers.
Beef broth
Supplies the savory base flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel at the end.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory broth.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, sugar. 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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