Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cabbage
Partially boil the cabbage pieces, then squeeze them dry.
Place the cabbage in a large pan, ensuring space between each piece.
Cover the cabbage with veal gravy or stock and let it stew for 2 hours.
Make the gravy
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour, stirring continuously.
Add the minced onions and stir again, then pour in the veal gravy and bring to a boil.
Pour the gravy mixture over the cabbage.
Assemble and serve
If desired, fry the pigeons and stew them with the cabbage, adding bacon stuck with cloves.
Once stewed, remove excess fat and soak bread in the gravy.
Place the soaked bread in the dish, position the fowl in the center, and arrange the cabbage around it.
Garnish with slices of bacon and a little cabbage between each slice.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,001 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together933 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,901 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Cabbage
- Forms the main bulk of the dish and becomes tender and sweet during long stewing.
- Butter
- Enriches the gravy and carries flavor through the sauce.
- Flour
- Melted with butter, it thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
- Onions
- Add aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the gravy.
- Veal gravy or stock
- Provides the liquid that moistens and flavors the cabbage as it stews.
- Bread
- Soaks up the gravy, becoming moist and absorbing its flavor.
The step that matters
Partially boil, then squeeze the cabbage dry. Boiling softens the cabbage so it can absorb gravy during stewing, and squeezing removes excess water that would dilute the sauce.
Swap the clove
The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, veal, butter, flour, onion, meat, bread):
- Capersfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, veal, butter, flour, onion, meat, bread. 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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