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To Make a Garbure

A hearty French stew of cabbage, bacon, and bread, simmered with stock and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Make a Garbure

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare stock or broth.

  2. Blanch and wash cabbage quarters, press dry, tie each quarter.

Stew

  1. In a large pot, layer bacon at bottom, then add cabbage quarters, ham, and veal if using. Cover with more bacon, then add carrots, onions, and herbs.

  2. Moisten with stock or broth and let stew over low heat.

  3. Once stewed, cut bread and let it simmer until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Drain cabbage and press dry.

  2. In a heatproof dish, layer cabbage, cheese, and stewed bread, sprinkling cheese between layers. Fill dish to brim, ensuring cabbage is bottom layer with extra cheese.

  3. Simmer gently in oven or over low heat until hot, serve with broth on side.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and turns soft and sweet during long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour that flavours the stock and the cabbage as it stews.
Bread
Soaks up the broth and thickens the liquid, giving the dish a body.
Gruyère or parmesan cheese
Melts between the layers, adding richness and a savoury, binding texture.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth during stewing.
Onions
Release sugars as they stew, adding sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Pressing the blanched cabbage dry. Excess water left on blanched cabbage dilutes the broth and makes the layered dish soggy. Pressing removes that water so the cabbage stays tender and the layers hold together.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley, bread. 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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