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Pickled Cabbage

A pickled cabbage dish with onions, cucumbers, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pickled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage into thin pieces.

  2. Cut the cucumbers lengthwise.

  3. Sprinkle the cabbage, onions, and cucumbers with coarse sea salt and hang in a sack to drain for 24 hours.

Season and pour

  1. Spread the mixture on a table and sprinkle with ground mustard, ginger, black pepper, mace, celery seed, and turmeric. Mix well.

  2. In a pot, combine sugar and vinegar and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the vegetables.

Finish the next day

  1. The next day, drain off the liquid, boil it again, and pour it over the vegetables.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

White cabbage
Provides the main crisp texture that holds up through pickling.
Cucumbers
Add crunch and a fresh, mild flavour to the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they stay crisp rather than soggy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that gives the pickle its sour bite and helps preserve it.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables for 24 hours. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage, onions and cucumbers. If they are not drained well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar brine and the pickle turns soft and watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, cucumber, mustard, ginger, pepper, celery):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, cucumber, mustard, ginger, pepper, celery. 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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