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Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage seasoned with salt, pepper, and dripping, served in a vegetable dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cabbage thoroughly and soak it in salt water for 1 hour to remove insects.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, bring plenty of water to a boil and add salt and washing soda.

  2. Add the cabbage and boil rapidly until tender, about 10-15 minutes depending on the type of cabbage.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the cabbage in a colander and mix with salt, pepper, and dripping.

  2. Serve in a vegetable dish.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender when boiled.
Washing soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which helps the cabbage soften and keeps its color bright.
Dripping
Adds fat and richness, giving the cooked cabbage a savoury flavour and smooth coating.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until tender. Cabbage must be cooked in fast-boiling water so it softens evenly. Under-boiling leaves it tough and fibrous, while overcooking releases sulfur compounds that make it smell and taste bitter.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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