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Pigs in Blankets

A dish of ground pork and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Pigs in Blankets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the rice and ground pork together, and season to taste.

Roll and cook

  1. Place one tablespoon of the mixture in each cabbage leaf and roll it up.

  2. Bind each roll with string.

  3. Boil the rolls in water for two 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. Pork + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together361 recipes

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

  3. Pork + cabbagetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground pork
Provides the main filling and richness, with fat that keeps the filling moist as it cooks.
Uncooked rice
Absorbs juices from the pork and cabbage, adding body and helping the filling hold together.
Cabbage leaves
Wrap the filling and soften as they cook, holding the rolls together.

The step that matters

Boil the rolls in water for two hours. Uncooked rice and pork need enough time in simmering water to become tender and cooked through. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer helps the rolls hold their shape.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, rice. 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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