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Dressed Cabbage

A cabbage dish simmered with stock, cream, and egg yolk, finished with fried onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,001 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dressed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cabbage until tender.

  2. Fry the onion until golden.

Make the dressing

  1. Pass the boiled cabbage and fried onion through a wire sieve.

  2. Add the stock, cream, and egg yolk to the mixture.

  3. Heat in a stewpan until warmed through.

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

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

  2. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cabbage + creamtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together778 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cabbage + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

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

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Green cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and is softened by boiling until tender.
Egg yolk
Enriches the mixture and helps it thicken and bind when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the dressing a smooth, soft texture.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma once fried golden.

The step that matters

Heat in a stewpan until warmed through. Egg yolk thickens with gentle heat but can scramble if overheated, so warm the mixture slowly and avoid boiling it.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cream, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cream, egg. 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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