Name: Cabbage Pickle
Ingredients: cabbage; vinegar; water; coarse sea salt; white mustard seed; celery seed; onions; turmeric; sugar

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the cabbage as for slaw.
Boil the cabbage in a mixture of vinegar and water, seasoned with salt, until very tender.
Dry the cabbage in the sun.
In a jar, layer the dried cabbage, sprinkling white mustard seed and celery seed between layers.
Add a layer of sliced onions that have been soaked in brine overnight.
Repeat the layering until all the cabbage is used.
Cover the mixture with sweetened vinegar and add turmeric to achieve a bright yellow color.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,279 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 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

Swap the onion

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

Horseradishfits better
Cauliflowerfits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.