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Cabbage and Cauliflower

A simple dish of steamed cabbage and cauliflower served with butter, salt, pepper, or white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cabbage and Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters.

  2. Soak the cabbage in cold water for over 4 hours.

  3. Chop the cabbage leaves.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Simmer or steam the cabbage until tender.

  2. Drain the cabbage.

  3. Serve the cabbage with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper, or with white sauce.

Prepare and steam the cauliflower

  1. Soak the cauliflower in cold water for ½ hour before cooking.

  2. Wrap the cauliflower in cheese cloth.

  3. Steam the cauliflower until tender.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Its leaves become tender and mild when simmered or steamed until soft.
Cauliflower
Steaming until tender softens its florets into a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the cooked vegetables, along with a rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer or steam the cabbage until tender. Cabbage needs to cook long enough to soften fully, since undercooked cabbage stays firm and bitter-tasting. Stopping at the right point gives a tender texture without turning it mushy.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, butter, pepper, cheese. 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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