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Escalloped Cabbage

A baked cabbage dish layered with cracker crumbs, butter, milk, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Escalloped 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 finely as for slaw.

Assemble

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer cracker crumbs and cabbage until full.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Add enough sweet milk to almost cover the cabbage.

  4. Top with more cracker crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C).

Finish and serve

  1. When nearly done, cover with grated cheese and return to the oven until melted.

  2. Serve very hot.

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender as it bakes in the milk.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the layers a soft, bound structure.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that moistens the cabbage and crumbs as they bake.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top to add richness and a savory, lightly browned finish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Covering the cabbage with milk. Enough milk must reach almost to the top so the cabbage cooks through and the crumbs soften; too little leaves dry, chewy cabbage.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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