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Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage dish seasoned with turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, mustard seed, celery seed, mustard, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Quarter the cabbage.

  2. Tie it up to keep the leaves together to fill a 2-gallon jar.

  3. Boil the cabbage in brine until nearly tender.

  4. Press the cabbage to remove excess brine.

  5. Pour cold vinegar over the cabbage.

  6. Let it sit for several days or weeks.

Make the spiced vinegar and finish

  1. Boil 1 gallon of strong vinegar with 2 ounces turmeric, 2 ounces cinnamon, sliced ginger, ¼ pound white mustard seed, and 1 ounce celery seed.

  2. Add 1 cup prepared mustard and 2 pounds brown sugar to the vinegar mixture.

  3. Combine the vinegar mixture with the cabbage.

  4. Store.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle, and its texture softens during boiling and soaking in vinegar.
Cold vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cabbage and sharpens its flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the sauce.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor to the spiced vinegar mixture.

The step that matters

Pressing the cabbage after boiling. Excess brine left on the cabbage dilutes the vinegar and alters its salt and acid balance, so the cabbage should be pressed well before the cold vinegar is poured over it.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, celery, sugar. 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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