Skip to main content
Main

Colcannon

A baked potato and cabbage dish seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Colcannon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Crush the potatoes with a fork.

  2. Chop the cabbage small and mix it with the potatoes.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan with the fat, pepper, and salt.

  4. Stir over medium heat until the fat is melted and mixed with the vegetables.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a baking dish and transfer the mixture into it.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Turn onto a hot dish and serve.

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. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Potatoes
Form the body of the dish, and their starch gives it a soft, fluffy texture.
Cabbage
Adds moisture, mild sweetness, and a tender texture once cooked.
Fat
Adds richness and carries flavor, and helps the mixture brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the fat into the vegetables over medium heat. The fat must melt and coat the potato and cabbage evenly. Uneven mixing leaves greasy pockets and dry patches, so the dish bakes unevenly and tastes flat.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Cauliflowerfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipes