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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A method for pickling red cabbage with vinegar, cloves, allspice, mace, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Take a fine firm cabbage of a deep red or purple colour. Strip off the outer leaves, cut out the stalk, quarter the cabbage lengthwise, and slice it crosswise.

  2. Lay the cabbage in a deep dish, sprinkle a handful of salt over it, cover it with another dish, and let it lie for twenty-four hours.

  3. Drain the cabbage in a colander to remove the salt, and wipe it dry.

Make the pickle

  1. Make a pickle by combining sufficient cider vinegar to cover the cabbage, equal quantities of cloves and allspice, and some mace. Add whole spices and a little cochineal to the mixture.

  2. Boil the vinegar and spices hard for five minutes.

Pot and seal

  1. Put the cabbage into a stone jar, pour the boiling hot vinegar over it.

  2. Cover the jar with a cloth until it cools, then insert a large cork and tie a leather over it.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

15Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
3 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage (in the method)
Forms the crisp, colourful body of the pickle.
Salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, leaving it firmer and better able to take up vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining and drying the salted cabbage. Salt must be rinsed off and the cabbage wiped dry before pickling. Leftover salt and water dilute the vinegar and weaken its preserving effect, and a wet cabbage stops the pickle from taking up flavour evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, allspice. 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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