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Summer Cabbage

Boiled cabbage served with butter, pepper, and optional cream sauce.

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

Summer Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into halves or quarters.

  2. Soak the cabbage in salted cold water to remove any insects.

  3. Drain the cabbage thoroughly.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the cabbage in a pot of salted boiling water.

  2. Do not cover and boil for 30 to 40 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the cabbage well in a colander, pressing out excess water with a plate.

  4. Serve the cabbage dressed with melted butter, pepper, and salt, or with cream sauce.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Is the vegetable being cooked, so its tenderness and mild flavour are the main result.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, savoury coating to the cooked cabbage.

The step that matters

Drain the cabbage well. Cabbage holds a lot of water, and leftover moisture dilutes the butter, pepper and sauce and makes the dish watery. Pressing out the excess keeps the flavour concentrated.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cream, sauce. 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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