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Cabbage, Plain Boiled

Boiled cabbage seasoned with coarse sea salt, optionally finished with butter or oil and a sprinkle of flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabbage, Plain Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the cabbage by removing the outer leaves and cutting off the stalk.

  2. Cut the cabbage in half and soak it in salt water for a while.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the cabbage.

  2. Keep the water boiling and uncovered until the cabbage is tender, about 15 minutes for young cabbages.

  3. Drain the cabbage and serve immediately.

  4. For added flavor, mix in butter or oil after draining, and sprinkle with flour to help it adhere.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Cabbage
Is the main vegetable; boiling softens its leaves until tender.
Butter or oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor onto the cooked leaves.
Flour
Helps the butter or oil cling to the drained cabbage.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling and uncovered. Keeping the water at a steady boil and the pot uncovered lets the cabbage cook evenly and keeps its color fresh, while lowering the heat or covering the pot can cause uneven softening and dull color.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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