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Fried Cabbage

A dish of sautéed cabbage with cream and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fried Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage finely, season with salt and pepper, and let it stand for 5 minutes.

Cook

  1. Heat an iron kettle until hot, add the fat, then add the cabbage and stir until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, heat the cream, stir well, and then mix in the vinegar.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the cabbage 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 softens into tender strands as it cooks.
Fat (such as butter or oil)
Conducts heat to the cabbage and carries flavour while it browns and softens.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy coating to the cooked cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar to the warm cream. Acid can curdle or thin dairy when mixed into it, so the cream should be heated gently and stirred well before the vinegar is added. Serving immediately keeps the sauce smooth and the cabbage hot.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, cream, vinegar. 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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