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Stewed Cabbage

A stewed savoy cabbage cooked with bacon, shallot, parsley, sugar, spiced pepper, salt, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Stewed Cabbage

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim and blanch the cabbage according to previous instructions.

  2. Stop boiling when the cabbage is slightly more than half done, then drain it.

Stew the cabbage

  1. In a stewpan, combine bacon, shallot, parsley, sugar, spiced pepper, and salt. Heat until bacon melts.

  2. Add cabbage quarters to the pan and turn them in the melted bacon for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Moisten with enough broth to cover the cabbage, then cover with a round of paper dipped in melted fat.

  4. Cover the pan and bring to a boil, then simmer gently until the cabbage is done.

Serve

  1. Lift out the cabbage quarters, place in a hot dish, and cover.

  2. Strain and skim the broth, thicken it, and pour over the cabbage.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cabbage + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68 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

Savoy cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it stews slowly in broth.
Bacon
Melts into the pan to add rich fat and savory flavor to the cabbage.
Broth
Moistens and gently cooks the cabbage while forming the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Blanching to just over half done. Stopping the boil early leaves the cabbage firm enough to hold its shape, since it finishes cooking during the slow stew.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, parsley, sugar, 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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