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Hot Slaw, Plain

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 ↓

Hot Slaw, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

  2. Remove the heart, shred the cabbage, and wash it.

  3. Soak the cabbage in salt water for a few minutes, then drain.

  4. Boil the cabbage with a ham bone until thoroughly cooked, then drain in a colander.

  5. Remove the ham bone and simmer the cabbage in sour cream.

  6. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  7. Serve in a deep vegetable dish.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Cabbage + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together186 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 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

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cream, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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