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Red Cabbage

A braised red cabbage dish cooked with bacon, butter, wine, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Blanch the cabbage quarters in boiling water for 30 minutes.

  2. Transfer the cabbage to cold water and squeeze out all the water.

Stew

  1. Line a stewpan with fat bacon and arrange the cabbage around it.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then add the butter.

  3. Pour the white wine and vinegar over the cabbage.

  4. Cover with more fat bacon and stew until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the cabbage on a dish and pour Espagnole sauce over it.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender through long stewing.
Fat bacon
Adds savory fat and flavor as it renders during stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps carry the flavor of the dish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the cabbage during stewing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the cabbage.

The step that matters

Blanch and squeeze the cabbage. Blanching softens the cabbage before stewing, and squeezing out the water removes excess liquid so the cabbage braises in the added fat, wine and vinegar rather than becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, white wine, vinegar. 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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