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Eed Cabbage

A pickled cabbage prepared with salt, spices, ginger, and white wine vinegar.

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

Eed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Place the slices on 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. Transfer the cabbage to a clean jar and add allspice, whole pepper, and sliced ginger.

  2. Pour cold white wine vinegar over the cabbage to cover it completely.

  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.

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

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, sliced body of the pickle that absorbs the vinegar and seasonings.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Cold white wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives it its sharp, tangy taste.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage over the long rest. Draining it well before adding vinegar keeps the pickle crisp and stops the brine from being diluted.

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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