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Boiled Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish cooked with corned beef or pork and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper 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 ↓

Boiled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outside leaves from the cabbage.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters.

  3. Place the cabbage in cold water.

  4. Open the cabbage to let the water run through.

  5. If using middling meat, scrape it and wash it in hot water.

Cook and serve

  1. Put the cabbage into boiling water with the meat and red pepper.

  2. Cook the meat for 1 hour.

  3. Add the cabbage; it will need about 45 minutes to cook.

  4. Drain the cabbage well.

  5. Serve the cabbage with the meat in the center of the dish.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 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. Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 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
Cooks down into tender, mild-tasting leaves that soak up the cooking liquid.
Corned beef or pork
Supplies savory flavor and fat that enrich the cooking water and the dish.
Red pepper
Adds gentle heat and aroma to the cooking water.

The step that matters

Timing the cabbage. Cabbage added too early turns soft and sulfurous, while the meat needs its full hour to become tender. Adding the cabbage at the right moment keeps both right.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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