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Boiling Vegetables

Cabbage boiled in salted water with baking soda, then drained and dressed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Boiling Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut cabbage into six or eight pieces.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in plenty of water with ¼ teaspoon baking soda for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain and dress the cabbage before serving.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
The main vegetable; it softens and turns tender as it cooks.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which softens the cabbage and helps it keep a bright green color.

The step that matters

Boiling for 30 minutes with baking soda. Baking soda softens the cabbage's cell walls quickly, so longer boiling can turn it mushy and dull in flavor. Watching the cabbage for tenderness near the end helps avoid overcooking.

“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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