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Cabbage Pickle

A fermented cabbage dish preserved with vinegar, sugar, molasses, mustard, spices, onions, and pepper pods.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle chopped cabbage with salt and let it stand for 2 hours.

  2. Wash the cabbage in fresh water.

Make and combine the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, molasses, mustard seed, ground mustard, black pepper, celery seed, and cloves to make the pickle.

  2. Add chopped onions and pepper pods to the cabbage.

  3. Pour the pickle over the cabbage and cook until thick.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and provides the crisp, chewy texture once cooked.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage so it softens less and stays crisp in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and helps thicken the pickle as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color and a caramel-like sweetness to the pickle.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavor and a bit of texture to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the pickle until thick. Cooking drives off water and lets the sugar and molasses concentrate, so the liquid thickens. Stop too early and the pickle stays thin and watery; cook too long and it can become overly dense and sticky.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, molasses, mustard, pepper, celery, clove):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, molasses, mustard, pepper, celery, clove. 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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