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Stuffed Cabbage

A boiled cabbage head stuffed with sausage and breadcrumbs, topped with salt pork, onions, and carrots, then baked and served with a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stuffed Cabbage

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim off the imperfect outer leaves of the cabbage.

  2. Cover the cabbage with boiling water.

  3. Cook the cabbage for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the cabbage.

  5. Cover the cabbage with cold water.

  6. Press out the water and wipe the cabbage with a towel.

  7. Cut out a round space around the stalk to create an opening.

  8. Season the inside of the cabbage with salt and pepper.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mix the sausage with the bread crumbs.

  2. Season the sausage mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Fill the cabbage with the sausage mixture.

  4. Tie the cabbage with string to hold its shape.

  5. Place the slice of salt pork on top of the sausage.

  6. Sprinkle the sliced onion and carrot over the cabbage.

  7. Cook the stuffed cabbage in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour.

Serve with the broth

  1. Remove the cabbage to a serving dish.

  2. Strain off the broth.

  3. Thicken the broth with flour smoothed in cold water.

  4. Pour the thickened broth around the cabbage.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 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
Forms the outer wrapper that holds the filling in its shape while it cooks.
Sausage
Supplies fat and savoury flavour that moistens the filling as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices and bind the sausage into a tender, cohesive filling.
Salt pork
Melts slowly over the filling, adding fat and moisture and seasoning the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking broth as its starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Smooth the flour into cold water before thickening the broth. Starch dispersed in cold water mixes evenly into hot broth; added dry or to hot liquid it clumps, and the starch only thickens the liquid once it heats enough to swell.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, pork, onion, carrot, flour):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, pork, onion, carrot, 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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