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Pickled Cabbage

Pickled cabbage made by layering sliced red cabbage with salt and spices, then brining in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer slices of red cabbage in a jar, sprinkling coarse sea salt over each layer.

  2. Place whole black pepper, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon in a bag and scald them in vinegar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cabbage and cover the jar tightly.

  2. Let it sit for 3 days before using.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the pickle and takes on color and crunch from the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the cabbage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cabbage, helping it soften and season evenly.
Whole black pepper
Adds pungent heat and aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds strong warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the jar tightly after pouring the hot vinegar. Sealing the jar traps the hot vinegar and spices around the cabbage so the brine works evenly and aroma is kept in. Leaving it open lets the liquid and flavors escape.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, cinnamon, 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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