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Fried Cabbage

A sautéed cabbage dish cooked with butter, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fried Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. Put the chopped cabbage into a kettle and add water, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil until tender.

Fry and serve

  1. Add butter and fry the cabbage uncovered until it is light brown.

  2. Stir in sugar and vinegar, then serve.

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. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish, becoming tender when boiled and browning slightly when fried.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, helping the cabbage take on color and a rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown. Frying the cabbage uncovered in butter lets surface moisture evaporate so the edges can brown through the Maillard reaction. Covering the pan would trap steam and leave it soft and pale.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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