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Salad

Red Cabbage Salad

Boiled red cabbage served with a sweet vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage finely.

  2. Cook in salted water until not too soft.

  3. Drain off the water and place the cabbage in a jar.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil the vinegar and sugar together.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cabbage and cover.

  3. Store in a cool place; it keeps well.

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).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cabbage + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the salad and holds its crisp texture under the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity that pickles the cabbage and preserves it while it stores.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the cabbage until not too soft. Overcooking breaks down the cabbage's cell walls, leaving it limp and mushy. Stopping while it still has some bite lets it hold its texture after it soaks in the hot vinegar mixture.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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