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Cabbage Tamale

A tamale made by wrapping a rice and ground beef mixture in cabbage leaves and cooking in boiling liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage 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 Tamale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix equal parts cooked rice and ground raw beef, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour boiling water over cabbage leaves and remove them from the water.

Roll and cook

  1. Place a small quantity of the meat and rice mixture on each leaf, roll up, and fasten with a toothpick.

  2. Drop the rolls into the boiling liquid and cook for 45 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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together361 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked rice
Adds bulk and soaks up juices from the meat, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Ground raw beef
Provides the main flavor and, as it cooks, firms up to hold the filling together.
Cabbage leaves
Act as the wrapper; blanching in hot water softens them so they roll without tearing.

The step that matters

Cooking the rolls for 45 minutes in the boiling liquid. The raw beef must cook all the way through, and the rolls need to stay intact. Keeping the liquid boiling steadily cooks the meat evenly while the leaves stay softened around the filling.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, pepper. 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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