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Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage rolls stuffed with rice, onion, and meat, simmered in a sauce of milk, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leaves

  1. Separate the leaves of the cabbage, wash them, and boil in water for about 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the water.

Make and roll the stuffing

  1. Mix the stuffing by combining rice, onion, meat, milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Take 1 tablespoon of stuffing and roll it in each cabbage leaf, tying securely to form rolls.

Brown and cook

  1. Brown the cabbage rolls in hot dripping in a pot.

  2. Add a little water and cook slowly for about 1 hour.

  3. Remove the cabbage rolls from the pot.

Make the sauce

  1. To the dripping in the pan, add 2 tablespoons flour and stir until browned.

  2. Add 1 cup boiling water and ½ teaspoon kitchen bouquet, then pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Its leaves wrap the stuffing and hold the rolls together while they cook.
Rice
Absorbs moisture and binds with the meat to give the stuffing body.
Raw meat
Provides the main filling and rich savoury flavour as it cooks through.
Flour
Browned in the dripping, it thickens the sauce and adds a toasty flavour.
Milk
Moistens the stuffing so it stays tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Browning the rolls in hot dripping. Searing the outside in hot fat creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction and helps the rolls hold their shape during the long simmer.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, onion, meat, milk, pepper, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, meat, milk, pepper, flour. 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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