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Crimson Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage dish preserved in a brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crimson Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Quarter the cabbage heads.

  2. Pour boiling brine made from 1½ pints of salt and 1 gallon of water over the cabbage and cover tightly.

  3. Re-boil the brine and return it to the cabbage twice, allowing it to cool in between.

Pack and pickle

  1. Drain the cabbage and place it in a jar.

  2. Fill the jar with boiling vinegar, re-boiled twice like the brine.

  3. Mix poke-berry juice with the vinegar and fill the jar.

  4. If using plain vinegar, add black pepper, red pepper, ginger-root, bruised horseradish, and garlic.

  5. Cover the jar tightly and store it in a dry, cool place.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Small firm heads of cabbage
Form the main body of the pickle, staying crisp when kept firm and not overcooked.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage and seasons the brine that preserves it.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Poke-berry juice
Provides the colour that turns the pickle crimson as it mixes with the vinegar.
Garlic
Adds aroma and pungency to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Re-boiling the brine and vinegar. Repeated boiling and cooling of the brine and vinegar helps sterilise the liquid before it contacts the cabbage, reducing spoilage. Boiling the vinegar also drives off some harshness. Skipping the re-boils risks a spoiled jar.

Swap the berry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, pepper, ginger, horseradish, clove, garlic):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Berrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, pepper, ginger, horseradish, clove, garlic. 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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