Name: Cabbage and Potatoes
Ingredients: 2 cups cooked cabbage; 2 cups cooked potatoes; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour; 1 ounce butter; ½ cup milk or cream

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 ↓

Cabbage and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the cooked cabbage and potatoes finely.
Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and flour.

Cook and serve

In a chafing dish, heat the butter until hot.
Add the milk or cream to the butter and heat until hot.
Stir in the vegetables and mix until everything is very hot.

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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and keeping the vegetables moist.
Milk or cream: Adds moisture and creaminess, turning the vegetables into a soft, cohesive mixture.
All-purpose flour: Thickens the milk and butter mixture so it clings to the vegetables.

Swap the cabbage

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

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Cabbagethe original

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