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Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage prepared by salting, fermenting, and layering with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and slice it thinly.

  2. Place the slices in a dish and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover with a cloth and let sit for 20 hours.

  4. Drain the cabbage in a sieve.

Pickle and seal

  1. In a clean jar, layer the cabbage with allspice, whole pepper, and sliced ginger.

  2. Pour cold white wine vinegar over the cabbage until fully covered.

  3. Seal the jar tightly to keep out air.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Provides the crisp body that the salt and vinegar soften and pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage so it becomes crisp and ready to take up the vinegar.
Cold white wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives it its sharp, pickled flavour.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt has pulled water out of the cabbage, and draining removes that liquid so the vinegar covers the cabbage and is not diluted. Leftover liquid can weaken the pickle and affect how well it keeps.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, pepper, ginger, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, ginger, white wine, 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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