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Quick Yellow Cabbage Pickle

A quick pickled yellow cabbage with salt, celery seed, mustard seed, brown sugar, vinegar, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Quick Yellow Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped cabbage and let it stand overnight.

  2. Squeeze the cabbage dry and place it in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Add the celery seed, mustard seed, brown sugar, and enough vinegar to cover the cabbage.

  2. Boil until the cabbage is tender.

  3. Add the turmeric when nearly done.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, leaving it crisp and ready to take up the pickling liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its tang.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their yellow colour and a mild, earthy aroma.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the cooked pickle.

The step that matters

Add the turmeric when nearly done. Turmeric colour and aroma fade with prolonged boiling, so adding it near the end keeps the yellow colour bright and its flavour fresh.

Swap the turmeric

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Turmericthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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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