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To Dress Red Cabbage

A cooked red cabbage dish flavored with butter, salt, pepper, and optional port wine or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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To Dress 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 ↓

To Dress Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Split the red cabbage and cut it into thin strips.

  2. Soak the cabbage in salt and water.

Cook and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the cabbage with some soup and butter.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and port wine or vinegar if preferred.

  3. Let it stew until tender.

  4. Remove the bacon if used and serve.

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 + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cabbage + port winetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 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

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the salad and becomes tender when stewed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the cabbage as it cooks.
Soup
Provides liquid for stewing and adds savory flavor to the cabbage.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and acidity that complement the red cabbage, if used.

The step that matters

Let it stew until tender. Red cabbage is tough and needs slow, moist cooking to soften its fibres. Cooking too briefly leaves it crunchy, while overcooking can make it mushy and dull in colour.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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