Why it works: Pork and cabbage work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 919 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Boiled Cabbage
Ingredients
Directions
Put the salt pork on the stove to cook for 1 hour before adding the cabbage.
Wash and slice the cabbage.
Add the cabbage to the pot with the boiling meat.
Cook for 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on your taste.
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.
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Pork + cabbagetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together919 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salt pork
- Gives the cooking liquid and cabbage a rich, savoury flavour and fat.
- Cabbage
- Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender, mild vegetable as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cooking time for the cabbage. Cabbage turns from crisp to very soft over a long simmer, and its texture and sulphur aroma grow stronger the longer it cooks. Checking for tenderness during the 30 minute to 2 hour window helps you reach the texture you prefer.
“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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