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Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish seasoned with butter, cream, and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outside leaves from the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

Cook

  1. Cook the cabbage in salted boiling water for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Drain the cabbage well and chop it.

Finish and bake

  1. Season with butter and cream, or pour over drawn butter gravy.

  2. Sprinkle with buttered crumbs and bake until the crumbs are browned.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + creamtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together778 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 through long simmering in water.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavour when it coats the cooked cabbage.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, mellow richness to the chopped cabbage.
Buttered crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the cabbage in salted boiling water for 3 to 4 hours.. Cabbage must be cooked long enough to soften fully, but the water should keep boiling so the cabbage cooks evenly. Salting the water seasons the cabbage from the start.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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