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Cabbage Catsup

A pickled cabbage relish with mustard, spices, onions, peppers, cucumbers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cabbage Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle chopped cabbage with salt and drain in a bag overnight.

Mix and season

  1. In a large bowl, combine drained cabbage with mustard seed, prepared mustard, cinnamon, allspice, mace, celery seed, ground pepper, turmeric, onions, green pepper, cucumbers, and brown sugar.

  2. Add vinegar gradually until the mixture is well combined.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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. Cinnamon + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 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 relish and provides its crisp, chopped texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, firming it and reducing wateriness in the relish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite and a textured pop to the relish.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aromatic sharpness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage overnight. Salt pulls moisture out of the cabbage through osmosis. Skipping or shortening the draining leaves excess water, which dilutes the relish and makes it soggy and less stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, mustard, cinnamon, allspice, celery, pepper, turmeric):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, mustard, cinnamon, allspice, celery, pepper, turmeric. 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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