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Creamed Cabbage

A cabbage dish cooked with cream, butter, milk, and flour.

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 ↓

Creamed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Drain the sliced cabbage and return it to the saucepan.

  2. Alternatively, heat a deep skillet, add sliced cabbage, and pour 1 pint of boiling water over it.

  3. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, then pour off the water.

Make the creamed cabbage

  1. Add ½ cup of rich cream, 1 ounce of butter, and salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Add ½ cup of rich milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of flour moistened with a little milk, season, and cook for a moment before serving.

  4. Let it simmer for 2–3 minutes, then 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 becomes tender as it cooks.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the sauce feel rich and smooth.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce along with the cream.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a creamy sauce that coats the cabbage.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be moistened with milk first and stirred in evenly, or it forms lumps. Cooking it briefly after adding removes the raw starch taste and lets the sauce thicken properly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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