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Chopped Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage dish flavored with coriander, celery, mace, allspice, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chopped Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Salt the cabbage as for slaw and let it stand for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Put the cabbage in a porcelain kettle and cover with weak vinegar.

  3. Add enough turmeric to color, then boil until tender.

  4. Drain off the weak vinegar and cover with strong cider vinegar.

Spice and boil

  1. Mix in the spices well and add 3 or more tablespoons of turmeric.

  2. Boil the mixture hard for 15 minutes.

  3. Let it cool before using.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Coriander + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 bulk of the pickle, becoming tender and absorbing the vinegar and spices.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor that deepens as the pickle sits.
Turmeric
Colors the pickle yellow and adds a mild earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture hard for 15 minutes. A hard boil lets the spices release their flavor into the vinegar and sugar, and brings the cabbage to a fully preserved, evenly seasoned state. Under-boiling leaves the spices raw and the pickle less stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coriander, celery, allspice, clove, mustard, sugar, onion):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coriander, celery, allspice, clove, mustard, sugar, onion. 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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