Skip to main content
Main

Flemish Red Cabbage

A braised red cabbage dish with onion, cloves, bay leaf, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Flemish Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters.

  2. Boil the cabbage with the onion, cloves, salt, pepper, and bay leaf for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the cabbage pieces and strain the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the cabbage in a covered pan with a bit of butter in the oven until tender.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender, mellow texture when cooked.
Onion
Adds savory depth and a subtle sweetness as it cooks into the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps keep the cabbage moist in the covered pan.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice note to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the pan in the oven. Covering the pan traps steam so the cabbage softens evenly without drying out. The small amount of butter adds moisture and richness while it cooks until tender.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, butter. 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.

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes