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Red Cabbage Pickles

Pickled red cabbage preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Red Cabbage Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Quarter the cabbage and remove the hard stalk.

  2. Shred the cabbage finely and place it in an earthenware or wooden bowl.

Salt and rest

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the cabbage and let it sit in a cool place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

  2. Rinse the cabbage in cold water.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the cabbage into jars and cover with vinegar.

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 + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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
Provides the bulk of the pickle and its crisp, crunchy texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.

The step that matters

Salting the cabbage for 24 hours. Salt draws moisture out of the cabbage through osmosis, which firms the texture and lets the cabbage absorb the vinegar later. Stirring helps the salt distribute evenly so no patches stay too raw or too limp.

“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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