Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Turnip Cabbage

Stuffed turnip cabbage filled with veal and herbs, simmered in veal gravy and Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Turnip Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbages

  1. Peel and wash the turnip cabbages.

  2. Parboil them until nearly cooked.

  3. Immerse in cold water and drain.

  4. Cut off the tops and scoop out half of the center of each cabbage.

  5. Chop the scooped center finely.

Stuff and cook

  1. Mix the chopped cabbage with raw veal, fine herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped chives.

  2. Stuff the scooped cabbages with the mixture and arrange them in a buttered flat saucepan.

  3. Moisten with a little veal gravy, then bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and cook slowly until tender, basting occasionally with gravy.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy into another saucepan, skim off the grease, and add 2 tablespoons of Espagnole sauce.

  2. Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency and pour over the stuffed cabbages before serving.

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. Turnip + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Cabbage + chivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + chivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip cabbages
Form the edible shell that holds the stuffing while cooking.
Raw veal
Binds the stuffing and sets firm as it cooks, giving a tender, cohesive filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the pan, promoting flavour and gentle browning.
Veal gravy
Provides moisture and savoury flavour while the cabbages cook slowly.
Espagnole sauce
Thickens and enriches the reduced gravy, giving the final sauce body and depth.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to the proper consistency. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the gravy as water evaporates. Too little reduction leaves it thin and watery; too much makes it overly salty and syrupy. Skimming grease first keeps the sauce clean-tasting.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, veal, meat, pepper, nutmeg, chive, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, veal, meat, pepper, nutmeg, chive, butter. 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

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes