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Cabbage Soup

A soup made with boiled cabbage, butter, flour, veal broth, pepper, salt, and hot milk.

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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Partially boil the cabbage and chop it finely.

  2. Fry the chopped cabbage in butter.

  3. Mix in the flour and add to the veal broth.

Make and finish the soup

  1. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Pass the soup through a sieve.

  4. Stir in the hot milk and serve immediately.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the soup and gives its main vegetable flavour.
Butter
Fat that carries the cabbage flavour and enriches the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth so the soup has body.
Veal broth
Provides the liquid base and savoury flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Passing the soup through a sieve. Cabbage breaks down into fibrous pieces during simmering, and sieving removes them so the soup becomes smooth. Pressing the solids through gives a silkier texture than skipping this step.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, pepper, 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.

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