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Mustard Cabbage

A pickled cabbage dish flavored with mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mustard Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Sprinkle salt over chopped cabbage and onions.

  2. Let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture and place it in a kettle with enough weak vinegar to cover.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain off the weak vinegar.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. Heat strong vinegar until scalding hot.

  2. Add brown sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add mustard seed, ground mustard, celery seed, red pepper, ground pepper, and turmeric to the vinegar mixture. Stir well.

Combine

  1. Pour the mustard mixture over the cabbage and onions.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 its texture softens as it cooks in vinegar.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body that blends into the mustard sauce.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Ground mustard
Thickens the sauce slightly and adds mustard flavor throughout.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives it its tang.

The step that matters

Draining the weak vinegar before adding the mustard sauce. Leftover weak vinegar would dilute the strong mustard sauce and weaken its flavor and preservative acidity, so the cabbage should be drained well first.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, sugar, mustard, 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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