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Red Cabbage Pickle

A pickled red cabbage preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Red Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cabbage

  1. Cut the red cabbage into very fine pieces.

  2. Mix the cabbage with 2 cups of coarse sea salt and let it stand for 36 hours, mixing well each day.

  3. Drain the cabbage thoroughly.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, whole cinnamon, whole allspice, whole pepper, and whole cloves in a bag and boil together.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the cabbage three times over five days.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and, once salted, gives up water to become crisp and tender.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage through osmosis, softening it and concentrating its flavour for pickling.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Whole cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the cabbage, and any leftover salt or moisture can dilute the vinegar brine, affecting flavour and preservation. Thorough draining helps the cabbage absorb the spiced vinegar evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, clove. 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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