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Stewed Cabbage

A dish of boiled cabbage sautéed with butter, flour, and cream or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Stewed Cabbage

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 ↓

Stewed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the stalk from the cabbages and slice them into thin strips.

  2. Wash and drain the cabbage, then add it to a large pan of boiling salted water.

  3. Boil until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes, then drain in a sieve.

Make the stew

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the drained cabbage, seasoning with salt and pepper, and stir until dry.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour and mix well, then gradually add the cream (or gravy/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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cabbage + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together978 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Cabbages
Form the bulk of the dish and give it its tender, cooked texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the cabbage and carrying flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the cream or sauce clings to the cabbage.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, forming a smooth, body-rich sauce with the flour.

The step that matters

Stirring the drained cabbage until dry. Excess water left on the cabbage would dilute the sauce and stop the flour from thickening it properly, so the cabbage should be drained well and stirred until the surface moisture has cooked off before the flour and cream are added.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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