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Sausage Soup

A hearty soup of sliced cabbage and sausages simmered in beef broth, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sausage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove decayed leaves from the cabbages and cut out the stalks.

  2. Wash and soak the cabbages, then slice them thinly.

  3. Drain the sliced cabbages in a sieve or colander.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the beef broth to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the drained cabbages to the boiling broth.

  3. Prick the sausages to prevent bursting and add them to the pot.

  4. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  5. Season with black pepper and coarse sea salt before serving.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 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

Winter cabbages or savoys
Form the bulk of the soup and soften into tender strands as they simmer.
Beef broth
Provides the cooking liquid and savory base that flavors the whole soup.
Sausages
Release fat and seasoning into the broth, adding richness and meaty flavor.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes. A vigorous boil can burst the sausages and toughen their casings, while a gentle simmer cooks them through and keeps the broth clear and the cabbage tender.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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