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Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage prepared with ginger, spices, and brown sugar, left to mature for several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Quarter the cabbage and cover it with boiling brine.

  2. Let the cabbage stand for 24 hours.

  3. Squeeze and dry the cabbage on a large flat dish for several days.

Cook and finish

  1. In a kettle, combine the cabbage with vinegar, ginger, allspice, black pepper, green pepper-pods, mustard seed, celery seed, mace, and turmeric.

  2. Boil the mixture until the stalk is soft.

  3. Add the brown sugar to the boiling mixture.

  4. The pickle is ready for immediate use.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 softens into a tender, absorbent texture during boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that deepens as the pickle cooks.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until the stalk is soft. Cabbage stalk is dense and takes longer to soften than the leaves. Cooking until it is fully tender ensures an even texture and lets the spices and vinegar penetrate the cabbage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, ginger, allspice, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, ginger, allspice, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric. 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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