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Stewed Cabbage

A cooked cabbage dish simmered with butter, flour, and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the stalk from the cabbage and slice it finely.

  2. Wash and drain the cabbage.

  3. Place the cabbage in a large pan of boiling salted water and cook until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the cabbage in a sieve, press out the water and chop the cabbage.

Stew

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

  2. Add the chopped cabbage and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir until it appears dry.

  4. Sprinkle in the flour and mix well.

  5. Gradually add the veal stock or white sauce, stirring continuously.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and becomes soft and tender when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the cabbage is stewed.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as it is stirred into the buttery cabbage.
Veal stock or white sauce
Provides the liquid that turns the cabbage into a moist, saucy stew.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and stock. Flour mixed into fat and then liquid forms a roux-style base that thickens smoothly only if the liquid is added gradually while stirring constantly. Adding it all at once can leave lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, veal. 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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