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Steamed, or Lady's, Cabbage

Steamed cabbage served with a butter sauce flavored with a pod of red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Steamed, or Lady's, Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the outside leaves of the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt among the leaves.

Steam

  1. Place the cabbage in a steamer over a pot of boiling water.

  2. Steam for 45 minutes or until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare a drawn butter sauce with a pod of red pepper.

  2. Pour the sauce over the cabbage 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
The main vegetable; steam softens its leaves until they become tender.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, and coats the cabbage with a smooth, moist sauce.
Red pepper
Contributes heat and aroma to the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Steam until tender, not longer. Prolonged heat over-softens the cabbage's cell walls and releases stronger sulfur compounds, so it can turn mushy and smell bitter. Check for tenderness near the end of the time.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, 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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