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Pickled Cauliflower or Red Cabbage

A pickled vegetable dish made by soaking cauliflower or red cabbage in salted water, then brining with vinegar, pepper, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickled Cauliflower or Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Dissolve coarse sea salt in water.

  2. Soak the cauliflower or red cabbage in the salted water for four days.

  3. Remove the vegetables and drain them.

Pickle and rest

  1. Boil vinegar with whole black pepper and celery seed to taste.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the pickles.

  3. Let the pickles sit for at least six weeks; they will taste better after three months.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Cauliflower or red cabbage
Forms the crisp vegetable base that absorbs the brine and pickling liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables and seasons them during the brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Whole black pepper
Adds a mild, warm spiciness to the pickling liquid.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, herbal aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining before pickling. Removing the vegetables and draining them well keeps excess brine from diluting the hot vinegar mixture, so the pickling liquid stays strongly acidic and seasoned.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, celery. 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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