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Cabbage Soup

A simple soup made with cabbage, butter, milk, bread, pepper, and salt.

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 ↓

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Wash the cabbage in cold water and trim off any dead leaves.

  3. Cut the cabbage into pieces, similar to how you would for a salad, but not too small.

Make the soup

  1. Once the water is boiling, add the cabbage.

  2. Add the butter, pepper, and salt, and let it boil for 1 hour.

  3. After an hour, pour in the milk and bring it back to a boil.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast the slice of bread on both sides using a toasting fork in front of the fire.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into dice-sized pieces and place them in a hot soup tureen.

  3. Pour the cabbage soup over the bread in the tureen 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the main vegetable body and mild sweetness as it simmers for a long time.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the broth a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the broth's flavor when added near the end.
Bread
Soaks up the broth and gives the soup body and a toasted aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the milk after the long boil. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard for a long time, so it is added only after the cabbage has cooked and is brought back just to a boil.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, pepper, bread. 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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