Name: Cooking of the Cabeage, Bacon and Sausage
Ingredients: 1 head of cabbage; Salt and pepper to taste; 8 to 10 slices of bacon; 8 to 10 sausages; 1 pint of bouillon; Butter for greasing

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 ↓

Cooking of the Cabeage, Bacon and Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

Drain the cabbage.
Set aside 15 to 20 leaves.
Loosen the remaining cabbage leaves with the back of a large knife.
Season the leaves with salt and pepper.
Divide the cabbage into 8 to 10 equal parts.
Wrap each part in 2 of the reserved leaves.
Form each wrapped part into a tight ball using a cloth to strain excess water.

Bake and serve

Place the cabbage balls, bacon, and sausages in a large saucepan.
Pour 1 pint of bouillon over the ingredients.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Cover with buttered paper and place a lid on the saucepan.
Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1.5 hours.
Remove the sausages after 35 to 40 minutes.
Remove the bacon after 1 hour.

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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,397 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage: Forms the wrapped balls and becomes tender and sweet during the long, moist cooking.
Bacon: Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the bouillon as it cooks.
Sausages: Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the cabbage and bouillon as they cook.
Bouillon: Provides the cooking liquid that gently moistens and flavours the cabbage.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil, then bake covered at 300°F. Cabbage needs a gentle, moist, covered cooking to become tender without breaking up. Keeping the oven low and the lid on preserves the wrapped balls' shape and prevents the liquid from reducing too fast.