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Preserve

Cabbage Pickle

A fermented cabbage pickle made with onions, cucumbers, mustard seed, spices, and vinegar, left to cure for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters and place it in brine for one week.

  2. Change the brine and let it sit for another week.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage for about 20 minutes, then press it in a cloth until dry.

  2. Scald the cabbage with vinegar, turmeric, cloves, and allspice.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the cabbage in a large stone jar, layering with mustard seed, ginger, black pepper, allspice, cloves, celery seed, horseradish, lemons, and brown sugar.

  2. Cover the mixture well with cold vinegar.

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and keeps its crisp texture through the brine.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour that develops as the pickle matures.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat to the finished pickle.

The step that matters

Press the cabbage until dry. Excess water left on the cabbage dilutes the vinegar and sugar in the jar, weakening preservation and flavour. Pressing it in a cloth before packing helps the pickle keep its strength.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper, allspice):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper, allspice. 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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