Skip to main content
Main

Cabbage Pickle

A jar of cabbage pickled in brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a 2-gallon jar with quartered cabbage.

  2. Pour hot brine over the cabbage and let it sit for 4 days.

Pickle

  1. Squeeze the cabbage to remove excess brine and pour weak vinegar over it, letting it sit for several days.

  2. In a separate container, mix strong vinegar with cinnamon bark, essence of cloves, and turmeric.

  3. Pour this mixture over the cabbage and seal the jar tightly.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cabbage + turmerictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 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 absorbs the brine and vinegar flavours as it sits.
Hot brine
Salt draws water out of the cabbage and seasons it before the vinegar is added.
Strong vinegar
Acidity preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, sour character.
Turmeric
Supplies a yellow colour and a warm, earthy aroma to the pickle.
Cinnamon bark
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma that infuses the cabbage during pickling.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the brine before adding weak vinegar. Excess brine left on the cabbage would dilute the weak vinegar and change the salt and acid balance, so the cabbage should be pressed well before the vinegar goes on.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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

More pickled cabbage recipes

Yellow 12Sweet 6Red 4Spiced 3 See all 87 →

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes