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To Stew Red Cabbage Marinaded

A stewed dish of marinated red cabbage cooked slowly with butter, flour, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Stew Red Cabbage Marinaded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash and finely shred the red cabbage.

  2. Boil the cabbage in salted water for 15 minutes, then drain.

Marinate

  1. Mix the cabbage with salt, pepper, vinegar, and cold water.

  2. Let it marinate for 3 hours.

Stew and serve

  1. Drain the cabbage again and place it in a stewpan with butter rolled in flour and powdered sugar.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sausages or suitable meat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its colour and mild flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that softens the cabbage during marinating and brightens its flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stewed cabbage.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid when rolled into the butter.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 3 hours. Gentle heat keeps the cabbage tender and prevents the butter and flour from scorching or breaking, so the liquid stays smooth rather than bitter or grainy.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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