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Cabbages — Continued

Cabbage leaves stuffed with sausage and vegetables, baked and served with Madeira sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbages — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Season the cabbage leaves with salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the inside of the leaves with sausage force-meat.

  3. Close and tie the cabbage to secure the stuffing.

Braise and serve

  1. In a sauté pan, combine carrot, onion, lard skin, and broth.

  2. Cover with a little fat from the soup stock.

  3. Place a buttered paper on top.

  4. Cook in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour, basting occasionally.

  5. Untie the cabbage.

  6. Serve with Madeira sauce.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Sausage force-meat
Forms the stuffing that fills the leaves and sets as it cooks.
Cabbage leaves (in the method)
Wrap the stuffing and soften during slow cooking, holding the parcel together.
Lard skin
Adds fat that enriches the braising liquid and keeps the stuffing moist.
White broth
Provides the liquid that gently cooks and moistens the cabbage parcels.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat, onion, butter, sauce. 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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