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Red Cabbage

A fermented pickle made from sliced red cabbage, salt, vinegar, black pepper, ginger, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut out the stalk of the cabbage and slice it into narrow strips.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the cabbage and let it sit for 2 days.

  3. Drain the cabbage slices thoroughly.

Pickle and seal

  1. Fill jars ¾ full with the cabbage slices.

  2. Heat vinegar with black pepper, ginger, and allspice, then pour it over the cabbage.

  3. Cover the jars to retain steam, and once the pickle is cold, seal with bungs and tie bladders over 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, sliced body of the pickle that stays firm under brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the vinegar that flavour the cabbage.

The step that matters

Draining the cabbage thoroughly. Excess water left after salting dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickle's preservation and flavour, so the slices should be well drained before jarring.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, ginger, allspice. 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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