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Stuffed Cabbage

A whole cabbage stuffed with meat, covered with salt pork, simmered in stock and sherry, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,208 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Parboil the whole cabbage and remove the heart.

  2. Fill the cavity with a mixture of chopped cooked meat and sausage meat.

  3. Cover the stuffing with a slice of salt pork and tie the cabbage.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the cabbage in a saucepan with white stock and sherry wine.

  2. Cover and simmer until cooked through.

  3. Serve with brown gravy poured around.

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. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cabbage + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

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

  3. Pork + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together829 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pork + winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,574 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  5. Cabbage + winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together186 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
Forms the edible wrapper that holds the stuffing while it cooks.
Cooked meat
Supplies the main savoury filling flavour and bulk.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist as it cooks.
Salt pork
Bastes the stuffing with rendered fat as it simmers.
White stock
Provides liquid for gentle simmering and adds savoury depth.

The step that matters

Simmer until cooked through. Cover the pan and keep the heat gentle so the stuffing heats through without the meat drying out or the cabbage turning mushy. The cabbage was only parboiled, so it needs enough time in the liquid to become tender.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pork, sherry, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, sherry, wine. 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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