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Cabbage Lettuce, American Style

A dish of cabbage lettuce leaves stuffed with veal and ham, seasoned with pepper and salt, baked with butter and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Lettuce, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Trim and wash the cabbage lettuces.

  2. Blanch them until the leaves are soft.

Fill and assemble

  1. Mix the veal, ham, pepper, salt, and chopped onion.

  2. Gently open the leaves and insert the meat mixture between them.

  3. Close the leaves and brush with butter, then cover with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in a well-buttered sauté pan and broil in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce.

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuces
Leaves wrap around the filling and hold it together while cooking.
Veal
Provides the main meaty filling and body once cooked through.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the meat filling.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the meat mixture.
Bread crumbs
Form a browned, crisp topping on the outside as they bake.

The step that matters

Blanch the cabbage lettuces until the leaves are soft. Leaves that are still stiff tear when opened and cannot be folded around the filling. Soft, pliable leaves let you open them gently and close them over the meat without breaking.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, veal, ham, pepper, onion, bread, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, veal, ham, pepper, onion, bread, butter. 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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