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Cabbage “a LA Creme.”

A creamy sautéed cabbage dish cooked in butter, flour, and cream.

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 ↓

Cabbage “a LA Creme.”

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Halve the cabbage and cook it in boiling water with salt until two-thirds cooked.

  2. Remove the cabbage, drain it, and cut it into small pieces.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add salt and pepper.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Finish cooking the cabbage in the cream mixture and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender as it finishes cooking in the sauce.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form the roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that clings to the cabbage.
Cream
Supplies liquid and fat that make the sauce creamy and moist.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour before adding the cream. Cooking the flour in melted butter first forms a roux, which keeps the sauce smooth. Adding flour directly to liquid or skipping the cooking can leave lumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, cream. 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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