Skip to main content
Main

Pork and Cabbage

A simple stew of salt pork, cabbage, onion, and herbs boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork and Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salt pork into slices and soak briefly in water if very salty.

  2. Slice the cabbage and place a thick layer in a large stew pan.

  3. Finely shred the onion and scatter it over the cabbage.

Cook

  1. Add whole peppercorns, cloves, thyme, and summer savory.

  2. Layer the pork on top, followed by the remaining cabbage and seasonings.

  3. Cover with plenty of water and boil for 2 hours.

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. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 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

Salt pork
Provides fat and savory flavor that seasons the cabbage and broth as it cooks.
Winter cabbage
Forms the bulk of the stew and turns tender and sweet during long simmering.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as it softens.

The step that matters

Covering with water and boiling for 2 hours. The pork and cabbage must stay submerged so they cook evenly. A steady boil breaks down the cabbage's fibers and softens the salt pork, while too little water can scorch the bottom of the pan.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, clove, thyme, summer savory):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, clove, thyme, summer savory. 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

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipes