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Pickled Cabbage

A pickled cabbage preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage and shred it.

  2. Sprinkle the cabbage thoroughly with coarse sea salt and let it sit for two days, removing any water that accumulates.

Pickle and store

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, ground pepper, ground ginger, and whole cloves, and bring to a boil.

  2. Pack the cabbage tightly into jars and pour the boiling vinegar mixture over it.

  3. Seal the jars and let them sit for at least one week before eating.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Red cabbage
Provides the main bulk and crisp texture of the pickle.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the cabbage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating flavour.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavours the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Removing accumulated water during the two-day salting. Salt draws water out of the cabbage through osmosis. Pouring off the liquid that collects keeps the cabbage from diluting the brine and helps it stay crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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