Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Cauliflower or Red Cabbage

A pickled vegetable preserved in a vinegar and pepper brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 and soak the cauliflower or red cabbage for 4 days.

  2. Remove the vegetables and drain them.

Pickle

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

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the pickles.

  3. Let them sit for 6 weeks for best flavor, but they will be good to use in 3 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
Is the vegetable being preserved, becoming crisp-tender and tangy as it pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the brine, helping them stay firm and seasoning them.

The step that matters

Soaking in the salt brine for 4 days. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming them and reducing the moisture that would dilute the vinegar. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the pickles softer and less 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.

More pickled cauliflower recipes

Spiced 3 See all 97 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipes