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Yellow Pickle

Cabbage pickled in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Mix vinegar, sugar, turmeric, allspice, cloves, mace, mustard-seed, and celery-seed in a pot.

  2. Pound the spices together.

  3. Stir the spices into the hot cider vinegar for several minutes.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Quarter the cabbage.

  2. Scald the cabbage in brine, then cover it.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Squeeze dry the cabbage.

  5. Hang the cabbage in the sun to bleach.

  6. Soak the bleached cabbage in plain vinegar.

Pickle

  1. Transfer the cabbage to the spiced vinegar for a week.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its bite.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cabbage (in the method)
Main ingredient that softens slightly while absorbing the spiced vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy flavour.
Mustard-seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Celery-seed
Adds a savoury, aromatic note to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Squeeze dry the cabbage. Excess water left in the cabbage dilutes the spiced vinegar and weakens its acidity, which can make the pickle less stable and less flavourful.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, turmeric, allspice, clove, mustard, celery):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, turmeric, allspice, clove, mustard, 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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