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To Pickle Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into slips and wash it clean.

  2. Place the cabbage in a pan with plenty of coarse sea salt for two days.

  3. Drain the cabbage on a large sieve until dry.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil vinegar with bruised black pepper, mace, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and mustard seed for half an hour.

  2. Strain the vinegar and let it cool.

  3. Add a little bruised cochineal to the cooled vinegar.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the cabbage tightly into jars.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the cabbage, or add it after it cools before sealing the jars with lids.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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

Red cabbage
Provides the bulk of the pickle and its crisp, firm texture once salted and packed.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage through osmosis, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy character.
Cochineal
Natural red dye that colours the vinegar and cabbage a deep pink-purple.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage until dry. Excess water left on the cabbage dilutes the vinegar and weakens its preserving effect, and it can make the pickle soggy rather than crisp.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg. 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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