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Greens, Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Etc

A simple boiled vegetable dish made with cabbage, cauliflower, and other greens, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Greens, Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash the vegetables in several changes of water to remove insects, sand, and dirt.

  2. In a clean pot, bring water to a boil and add salt.

  3. Add the greens to the boiling water and press the greens down.

Boil

  1. Boil the greens for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Strain the greens.

  3. Transfer the greens to a second saucepan of boiling, slightly salted water.

  4. Cover the saucepan until it reaches a boil, then remove the lid and skim off any scum.

  5. Cook the greens uncovered until done, which may take 10 to 30 minutes depending on the type.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green vegetables
Form the dish itself; their tenderness changes as they cook in boiling water.
Salt
Lightly seasons the cooking water so the greens taste seasoned.

The step that matters

Cook the greens uncovered until done. Greens cooked uncovered in boiling water let volatile acids escape, keeping their color bright green. Timing varies by type, so check for tenderness rather than relying on a fixed time.

“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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