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Cabbage with Potatoes

A simple boiled cabbage and potato dish seasoned with beef drippings, butter, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cabbage with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the cabbage leaves and cut them into large pieces.

  2. Boil the cabbage in a pot of water until tender.

  3. Peel and cut the Irish potatoes into pieces.

Cook

  1. Add the potatoes to the cabbage and boil until both are done.

  2. Season with beef drippings, butter, and salt.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir well, adding water if necessary.

  4. Let it boil for a few more 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. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 softens into tender, mild-tasting pieces when boiled.
Irish potatoes
Add starch and body, becoming soft and helping thicken the cooking liquid.
Beef drippings
Add savory, meaty fat flavour that coats the cabbage and potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, buttery flavour through its fat.
Flour
Starch that thickens the cooking liquid into a looser, coating sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed. Sprinkle it evenly while stirring, and add water as needed so it dissolves and thickens smoothly rather than forming lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beef, butter, flour. 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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