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Stuffed Cabbage Head

A cabbage head stuffed with a mixture of meat, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, and small leaves, then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Carefully separate the leaves of the cabbage.

  2. Boil the leaves in salt water until half done, then drain well.

  3. Lay a large clean napkin in a colander and place the large leaves overlapping, with the bottom of the leaf down.

  4. Chop the small leaves of the cabbage very fine.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped small leaves, chopped meat, bread crumbs, eggs, and butter until well combined.

Assemble and boil

  1. Tie up the corners of the napkin with the mixture inside and partially cover with water.

  2. Boil for 2 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides savoury flavour and substance.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling so it holds together when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set during boiling to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling tender and moist.
Cabbage
Its leaves wrap the filling and its chopped small leaves add body and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the leaves until half done, then drain well. Leaves that are undercooked stay stiff and tear when rolled, while leaves cooked too long become fragile. Draining well keeps excess water from diluting the filling and making the wrapped parcel soggy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, egg, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, egg, butter. 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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