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Cabbage

A sautéed cabbage dish flavored with butter, green onions, gravy, lime juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash and clean the cabbage thoroughly.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters or slices if large.

  3. Boil the cabbage in salted water until tender.

  4. Drain the cabbage and press it free from water.

Make the dish

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan, add the cabbage, and mix well.

  2. Stir in chopped green onions, gravy, and lime juice.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Let it stew for a few minutes.

  5. Serve.

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. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + limetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender when boiled and then stewed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the stewed cabbage.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild, buttery cabbage.
Green onions
Add a fresh, sharp aroma that complements the cabbage.

The step that matters

Press the cabbage free from water. Excess water left in the boiled cabbage dilutes the butter and gravy and makes the stewed dish watery and bland instead of coating the leaves.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, butter, lime, 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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