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To Boil Cabbages

A boiled cabbage dish seasoned with salt, butter, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

To Boil Cabbages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the stems and remove decayed outer leaves.

  2. Soak the cabbage in salt water for 1 hour, stem side up.

  3. Divide the cabbage into quarters, keeping the stem intact.

Boil

  1. Boil in water with 1 teaspoon of salt, uncovered, skimming occasionally for 45 minutes.

  2. Remove the cabbage and discard the water to avoid odor.

  3. Replace with clean boiling water and boil until tender, about another 45 minutes.

  4. Drain the cabbage in a colander.

Serve

  1. Cut off the stem.

  2. Serve the cabbage in quarters with a small piece of butter.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

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 + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the dish, becoming soft and tender as it cooks in water.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked cabbage.

The step that matters

Discarding the first boiling water. Cabbage releases sulfur compounds and strong odors during early boiling, so replacing the water with clean boiling water keeps the final flavor milder and fresher.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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