Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage preserved with salt, peppercorns, ginger, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and ginger work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 545 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove dry, tough outer leaves from the cabbage and divide it into 5 or 6 pieces.

  2. Shred the cabbage finely.

  3. Place the shredded cabbage in layers on flat dishes or trays.

  4. Sprinkle the layers with salt.

  5. Leave the cabbage for 2 days, turning it frequently.

  6. Drain the cabbage on a hair sieve.

Pickle and store

  1. In clean jars, layer the cabbage about 3 inches high.

  2. Sprinkle the cabbage with black and white peppercorns and crushed ginger.

  3. Bring vinegar to a boil.

  4. Let the vinegar cool.

  5. Cover the cabbage entirely with the cooled vinegar.

  6. Add a little carmine if desired for color.

  7. Cover the jars with a bladder.

  8. Store in a dry, cool place.

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. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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; salting softens its tough texture and draws out moisture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage over two days, firming it and concentrating its flavour.
Vinegar
Acidifies the cabbage, preserving it and giving it a sharp, tangy flavour.
Black and white peppercorns
Add a warm, pungent aroma that flavours the pickling liquid.
Crushed root ginger
Adds a spicy, aromatic note to the cabbage.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the cabbage. Salt must draw enough water out of the shredded cabbage over two days; this firms the texture and keeps the finished pickle crisp rather than soggy. Draining well before jarring also helps prevent excess liquid from diluting the vinegar.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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.

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes