Why it works: Ham and cabbage work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 186 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Cabbage
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place the bacon or ham in a pot of water and bring to a boil.
About one hour before serving, cut the cabbage into quarters, trimming off any damaged leaves and checking for insects.
Cook and serve
Add the cabbage to the pot with the ham and boil until tender.
Carefully remove the cabbage and place it in a serving dish.
Serve hot.
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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Ham + cabbagetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together186 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon or ham
- Flavours the cooking water with smoky, savoury fat as the cabbage simmers.
- Cabbage
- Forms the main vegetable, softening from crisp to tender as it boils.
The step that matters
Boiling the cabbage until tender. Cabbage needs enough time in simmering water to soften its tough cell walls. Stopping too early leaves it firm, while overcooking releases sulfurous compounds that give a strong smell and a mushy texture.
“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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