Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Cabbage

A simple cabbage dish cooked in butter after boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Stewed Cabbage

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the stalk from the cabbage and slice it into very thin strips.

  2. Wash and drain the cabbage strips, then add them to a large pot of boiling salted water.

  3. Cook until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes, then drain in a sieve.

  4. Chop the cabbage slightly and set aside.

Stew in butter

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the cabbage to the melted butter, season with salt and pepper, and stir until the cabbage is dry.

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

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the body of the dish; cooking softens its fibres into a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and coats the cabbage, carrying flavour through the dish.

The step that matters

Stir until the cabbage is dry. Surplus water left on the cabbage after draining dilutes the butter and makes the stew steam and turn watery, so it cannot coat the strands or develop a rich, concentrated flavour.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

More stewed cabbage recipes

Spanish 4 See all 68 →

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipesScalloped CabbageScalloped Cabbage16 recipes