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Cabbage Soup with Rice

A hearty soup made with cabbage, bacon, onion, rice, and broth, finished with pepper and Parmesan.

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 ↓

Cabbage Soup with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cabbage and remove the outer leaves.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters and mince the tender leaves.

Make the soup

  1. Heat a little butter in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the diced bacon until light yellow, then add the chopped onion and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in the rice, cover the pan, and cook until the rice is thoroughly done.

  5. Season with pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

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

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Rice
Absorbs broth and softens, thickening the soup and adding body.
Bacon
Renders fat that carries flavour through the frying of the onion and cabbage base.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the soup, contributing texture and a mild sweetness when cooked.
Onion
Softens during cooking and adds savoury sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until thoroughly done. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and softening while it sits, so it can turn mushy if overcooked or stay firm if undercooked. Covering the pan holds steam in so the grains cook evenly through the broth.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, rice, pepper, butter, parmesan cheese. 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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