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Red Cabbage Pickled

A pickled cabbage preserved in vinegar with spices and sealed with beeswax.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Red Cabbage Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Trim the outside leaves and cut the stalk off the cabbage heads.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters lengthwise, then in half quarters.

Layer the jar

  1. In a gallon jar, layer cabbage, 6 bay leaves, 3 blades of mace, ½ teaspoon whole cloves, and ½ teaspoon whole black pepper.

  2. Repeat layering until the jar is within an inch of being full.

  3. Add 3 tablespoons of coarse sea salt, 2 tablespoons of whole cloves, and 2 tablespoons of whole black pepper.

Pickle and seal

  1. Fill the jar with cold cider vinegar until it reaches the neck, ensuring it does not touch the stopper.

  2. Seal the jar with ground glass or stone stoppers and pour melted beeswax around them.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 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
Provides the crisp, firm body of the pickles and the main vegetable mass.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cabbage and helps preserve it during pickling.
Cider vinegar
Acidifies the brine, giving the pickles their sharp flavour and preserving them.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the layered cabbage.
Whole black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent spice flavour throughout the jar.

The step that matters

Keep the vinegar from touching the stopper. Vinegar contacting the stopper can weaken the seal and let air in. Filling to the neck while keeping the stopper clear keeps the jar sealed and the cabbage submerged for safe pickling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, clove, pepper, cider, 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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