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Red Cabbage Pickle

A pickled red cabbage dish made by shaving cabbage, scalding vinegar, layering with spices in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Shave the cabbage very finely.

  2. Scald the vinegar and pour it over the cabbage multiple times until tender.

  3. Place the mixed spices in small bags.

  4. Layer the cabbage in a jar, adding a spice bag between layers until the jar is filled.

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).

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 pickle and gives it a crisp texture that the vinegar gradually softens.
Vinegar
Acid that softens the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mixed spices
Add aroma and flavour that infuse the cabbage through the spice bags.

The step that matters

Pour the scalded vinegar over the cabbage until tender. Hot vinegar and acid soften the cabbage's tough cell structure over repeated pourings. Checking for tenderness each time shows when the cabbage is ready to pack in the jar.

“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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