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Cabbage Soup

A simple soup made with shredded cabbage, water, broth, pepper, salt, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash and trim the cabbage, then cut the leaves into fine shreds.

Cook

  1. Boil the cabbage in 1 quart of water until tender.

  2. Combine the boiled cabbage and water with 1 quart of good broth.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in 1 ounce of fresh butter and 2 lumps of sugar.

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

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Young cabbage
Provides the main body and mild flavour of the soup once cooked until tender.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the slight bitterness of cooked cabbage.
Broth
Supplies the savoury base flavour that the cabbage absorbs.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and sugar just before serving. Stirring fat and sugar in off the heat keeps the butter fresh and glossy and prevents it from separating or tasting dulled by prolonged boiling.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sugar. 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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