Skip to main content
Main

Scalloped Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish layered with butter, breadcrumbs, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Scalloped Cabbage

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 ↓

Scalloped Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into thin strips as for slaw.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the cabbage in a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and bits of butter.

  3. Add a layer of bread crumbs.

  4. Repeat the layers, finishing with bread crumbs on top.

  5. Pour the sweet milk over the entire dish.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the cabbage is tender.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 and becomes tender and soft as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping and soak up some of the milk as the dish bakes.
Sweet milk
Moistens the layers and bakes into a creamy, custard-like sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the flavor develop.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, milk. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes