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Stuffed Cabbage

A cabbage stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, spices, egg yolks, and butter, then cooked in boiling water or steam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Parboil the whole cabbage for a few minutes, then tie it tightly in a towel.

  2. Drop the tied cabbage into boiling water with the ham for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the cabbage and plunge it in cold water to cool.

  4. Carefully untie the cloth and remove the heart of the cabbage, saving the piece you cut out.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the heart with bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, whole spices, black pepper, celery seeds, yolks of hard boiled eggs, and butter.

Cook and finish

  1. If using a steamer, place the cabbage over boiling water for 30 minutes, fitting the piece of stalk back in.

  2. If no steamer, wrap the cabbage in the towel and boil for 15 minutes.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Cabbage
Forms the wrapper that holds the stuffing and turns tender when parboiled and cooked.
Ham
Flavors the cooking water with savory, meaty aroma while the cabbage simmers.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs butter and moisture, giving the stuffing body and a soft, binding texture.
Hard boiled eggs
Enriches the stuffing with fat and richness from the cooked yolks, binding it together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and keeping the stuffing moist.

The step that matters

Cooling the cabbage before untying it. Plunging the cabbage into cold water stops the cooking so it can be handled safely and keeps the leaves intact while the heart is removed, so they do not tear.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, bread, pepper, clove, allspice, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, bread, pepper, clove, allspice, celery. 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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