Skip to main content
Main

9-cabbage, Stuffed

Cabbage leaves stuffed with seasoned forcemeat, bacon, and carrots, simmered in stock.

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

Why it works: Thyme and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

9-cabbage, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the large leaves from the cabbage and cut off the stalk.

  2. Soak the cabbage in boiling water for 1 hour.

  3. Clean and drain the cabbage well.

  4. Open the leaves and remove the heart.

Stuff and tie

  1. Fill the hollow with forcemeat and place it between each leaf.

  2. Cover the forcemeat with slices of bacon.

  3. Place a cabbage leaf over the bacon.

  4. Tie the cabbage up neatly with tape.

Stew and serve

  1. Put the prepared cabbage into a stewpan with stock.

  2. Add thyme, bay leaf and carrots.

  3. Let all stew gently for 2 hours.

  4. When done, untie the cabbage and serve with sauce thickened with butter and flour.

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. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Cabbage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + thymetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Forcemeat
Provides a savoury, moist filling that cooks through and flavours the cabbage layers.
Cabbage
Forms the edible wrapper that becomes tender during the long gentle stew.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly during stewing, adding fat and savoury flavour to the filling and leaves.
Stock
Moist cooking liquid that softens the cabbage and carries flavour into the dish.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Let all stew gently for 2 hours. Gentle simmering, rather than a hard boil, lets the cabbage soften fully and the forcemeat cook through without toughening or breaking apart.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, carrot. 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.

More stuffed cabbage recipes

Turkish 4 See all 77 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes