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Dressed Cabbage

A sautéed Savoy cabbage mixed with diced ham or bacon, seasoned with salt 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 ↓

Dressed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the Savoy cabbage until tender, then drain well and chop.

Cook

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped cabbage and diced ham to the pan.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and stir to combine.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately while very hot.

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. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Cabbage + hamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Savoy cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens to a tender, mild base.
Cooked ham or bacon
Adds savory, salty flavor and a meaty bite to the cabbage.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor as the cabbage and ham warm in the pan.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, 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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