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Cabbage with Cream

Creamed cabbage made with butter, flour, cream, and spices.

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 with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the well-blanched cabbage.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

Make the creamed cabbage

  1. Add the chopped cabbage, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; stir well.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. Pour in the cream and reduce until well incorporated, about 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a hot dish and serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 carries the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the cabbage and carries the flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce that clings to the cabbage.
Cream
Makes the sauce rich and, as it reduces, thickens it further.

The step that matters

Pour in the cream and reduce. Cream thickens as its water evaporates and the flour starches swell. Reducing too fast or too long can scorch the milk solids or make the sauce pasty, so keep the heat gentle and stir while it reduces.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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