Skip to main content
Drink

Rummage Pickle

A pickled mixture of cabbage, apples, celery, green peppers, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Rummage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cabbage, apples, celery, and green peppers in a bowl.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the mixture and mix well.

  3. Let it stand for 5 to 6 hours or overnight.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, heat vinegar and mix in sugar until dissolved.

  2. Add mustard, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and celery seed to the vinegar.

Cook and finish

  1. Drain the vegetables by squeezing out excess moisture and add them to the vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for a few minutes, stirring to ensure even cooking.

  3. If desired, add hot peppers for extra heat.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the bulk and crisp texture of the pickle.
Apples
Add natural sweetness and a fruity bite to the mix.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables so they soften and stay crisp-tender in the brine.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables. Salt pulls water out of the vegetables. If too much moisture stays in, the pickle becomes watery and dilutes the vinegar. Squeezing out the excess before adding them to the hot vinegar keeps the texture firm and the brine strong.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, pepper, sugar, mustard, clove, 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesApple WaterApple Water81 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesCinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipes