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Cabbage, Braised

Savoy cabbage braised with bacon, onions, carrots, herbs, and stock, simmered for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cabbage, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash, trim, and halve the cabbages.

  2. Cover them with boiling water and add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes, then drain well and cut away the stalks.

  3. Sprinkle the cabbages with salt and pepper, put the halves together, and fasten securely.

Braise

  1. Cover the bottom of a stew pan with slices of bacon.

  2. Place the cabbages in the pan, add thickly sliced onions and carrots, herbs, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add enough stock to nearly cover the cabbages, cover with a lid, and simmer gently for 1 hour.

Finish

  1. When ready, remove the strings, drain well, press dry in a cloth, shape as required, and use as a garnish.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Savoy cabbages
Form the main body of the dish and become tender and sweet during long gentle cooking.
Slices of fat bacon
Add fat and savoury flavour that seasons the cabbage as it braises.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid as they soften.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Stock
Provides moisture for gentle braising and carries flavour into the cabbage.

The step that matters

Pressing the cabbage dry. Cabbage holds a lot of water after boiling and braising. Pressing it dry in a cloth removes excess moisture so the cabbage keeps its shape and does not taste watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, carrot, parsley, thyme, 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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