Skip to main content
Main

To Cook Cabbage

A cooked cabbage dish simmered in milk, butter, flour, paprika, and topped with Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Cook Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cabbage

  1. Boil chopped cabbage in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and add enough milk to cover the cabbage.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in paprika, butter, and flour until mixed.

  2. Heat thoroughly, then sprinkle in grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Let it stand for a few minutes and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 carries the creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and carries flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce and adds moisture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the sauce turn richer as it melts.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly after adding the flour. Flour must be heated with the liquid long enough to cook out its raw taste and thicken the sauce. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, parmesan cheese):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, parmesan cheese. 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.

More creamed cabbage recipes

Salad 7 See all 121 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes