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Cabbage, Farced

Cabbage stuffed with a forcemeat of veal, bacon, eggs, anchovies, mushrooms, and herbs, then stewed with broth and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cabbage, Farced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage in water for 2–3 hours, then half‑boil it and drain in a colander.

  2. Carefully cut out the heart of the cabbage without breaking the outer leaves.

Make and fill

  1. Make forcemeat by finely chopping veal and bacon, then mixing with hard‑boiled egg yolks, pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, lemon peel, parsley, thyme, and anchovies.

  2. Add the crumb of stale roll, chopped mushrooms, and the cabbage heart to the forcemeat, mixing with an egg yolk.

  3. Fill the hollow of the cabbage with the forcemeat and tie it with thread.

Stew and serve

  1. In a stewpan, layer slices of bacon and thin slices of coarse beef, then place the stuffed cabbage on top.

  2. Cover and stew gently over low heat until the bacon begins to stick to the pan.

  3. Shake in a little flour.

  4. Add the broth, onion with cloves, mace, whole pepper, and sweet herbs.

  5. Cover and stew gently for 1½ hours.

  6. Add red wine.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Serve with strained gravy over the cabbage.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Its outer leaves form the wrapper that holds the forcemeat while the dish stews.
Veal
Finely chopped, it forms the meaty body of the forcemeat and gives it a firm, tender bite.
Bacon
Its fat bastes the cabbage and seasons the stewing liquid as it renders.
Egg yolks
They bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and served.
Mushrooms
They add moisture and earthy savour to the forcemeat filling.
Coarse beef
Thin slices laid under the cabbage enrich the stewing liquid with savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Stew gently over low heat. Gentle heat lets the cabbage and forcemeat cook through and tenderise without boiling hard, which would toughen the meat and break the wrapped leaves apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, veal, egg, pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, veal, egg, pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme. 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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