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Cabbage Soup

A hearty soup made with salted pork, mutton, sausage, cabbage, carrots, turnip, leeks, celery, onion, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine the salted pork and breast of mutton with the water in a kettle.

  2. Set the kettle on a slow fire.

  3. Skim the broth before it boils.

  4. Boil for about 1.5 hours.

  5. Strain to remove any small bones.

  6. Return the broth and meat to the kettle.

Add the vegetables and sausage

  1. Add the cabbage, which has been boiled in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the carrots, turnip, leeks, celery, onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the sausage.

  4. Boil gently for about 2 hours.

  5. Strain the broth.

Serve

  1. Pour the broth over croutons in a soup dish.

  2. Serve the pork, mutton, and sausage with the cabbage on a separate 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted pork
Gives the broth its savory flavor and body as it simmers.
Breast of mutton
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth during the long simmer, adding richness.
Cabbage
Its mild sweetness and tender texture become the soup's main vegetable.
Sausage
Adds smoky-meaty fat and flavor to the broth as it cooks gently.

The step that matters

Skim the broth before it boils. Skimming before boiling removes the foam and impurities that rise early, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting. Starting on a slow fire lets fat and scum separate gradually.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, mutton, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, mutton, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion. 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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