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Sauerkraut or Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is fermented cabbage prepared by layering with salt and optional bacon, dill, or caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dill and caraway share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 47 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Sauerkraut or Sauerkraut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Collect cabbage in autumn and remove the stalks.

  2. Slice the leaves by machine or hand.

Ferment

  1. Layer the sliced cabbage in a vat, alternating with layers of coarse sea salt until the vat is full.

  2. Place heavy weights on top to apply pressure.

  3. Allow to ferment for six weeks, adjusting time based on temperature.

Cook

  1. To cook, stew the sauerkraut in its own liquid with bacon or pork, adding dill or caraway seeds if desired.

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. Dill + carawaytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Cabbage + dilltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + carawaytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cabbage + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

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

  5. Pork + carawaytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Is the base vegetable that ferments into sauerkraut, providing the bulk of the dish.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and keeps harmful microbes in check while beneficial lactic acid bacteria ferment the cabbage.

The step that matters

Layering the salt and cabbage. Salt must be distributed evenly through the cabbage. Too little salt lets spoilage microbes grow, while the right amount draws out brine that covers the leaves and favors lactic acid fermentation. Keeping the cabbage submerged under its brine under weight prevents mold and off flavors.

Swap the dill

The recipe marks dill as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pork, caraway):

  1. Dillthe original
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pork, caraway. 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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