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Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage prepared by boiling cabbage, then soaking it in a vinegar, sugar, and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cabbage quarters in salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the cabbage and bring vinegar to a boil in a pot.

Season and pour

  1. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves to the boiling vinegar.

  2. Pour the seasoned vinegar over 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and softens during boiling until tender.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavour of the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds a pungent, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the seasoned vinegar over the cabbage. The vinegar must be at a full boil when it is added to the spices and sugar so they dissolve and infuse evenly. Pouring it over the cabbage while it is still hot helps the liquid penetrate and flavour the pieces.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, 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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