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Stewed Cabbage, Spanish Style

A Spanish-style cabbage stew simmered with butter, broth, Madeira wine, and aromatics, garnished with glazed chestnuts and fried sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Stewed Cabbage, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim, wash, and quarter the cabbage, removing the stalks and cutting the leaves into fine shreds.

  2. Parboil the cabbage for 5 minutes, then immerse in cold water, drain, and press dry.

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan, add the cabbage, cover, and simmer to reduce moisture.

Make the gravy

  1. In a separate saucepan, lightly fry the carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, cloves, and garlic in clarified butter.

  2. Add broth and Madeira wine, cooking until reduced by three-quarters.

  3. Strain the gravy, remove grease, and add it to the cabbage after its moisture is reduced.

Finish and serve

  1. Simmer until the cabbage is tender and nicely glazed.

  2. Before serving, drain off the butter, dish up the cabbage, and garnish with glazed chestnuts and fried sausages.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish; slow simmering softens its fibres and concentrates its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour as the cabbage cooks gently.
Broth
Provides liquid for the braise and, once reduced, a savoury base for the gravy.
Madeira wine
Adds depth and a subtle sweetness as it reduces into the gravy.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury aroma when lightly fried into the gravy base.

The step that matters

Reducing the cabbage's moisture before adding the gravy. Cabbage releases a lot of water as it cooks. If it is not reduced first, the gravy becomes diluted and the dish turns watery instead of glazed and concentrated.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, clove, garlic):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, clove, garlic. 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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