Why it works: Beef and cabbage work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 872 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Corned Beef and Cabbage
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the salt beef in fresh water overnight to reduce saltiness.
Renew the water with clean, cold water and place the beef over medium heat.
Boil for 3.5 hours, skimming every 15 minutes to remove salt and blood.
After 2 hours, add enough cabbage to fill the pot, removing some water if necessary.
Boil gently for an additional 1.5 hours after adding the cabbage.
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.
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Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
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