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Pickled Cabbage

A cabbage pickle made with vinegar, mustard seed, cinnamon, pepper, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage very fine with a chopping knife.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for 10 minutes.

  3. Squeeze the cabbage dry with your hands into a crock.

Pickle

  1. Boil the cider vinegar, mustard seed, cinnamon, whole pepper, and celery seed together.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cabbage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and provides the crisp, crunchy texture.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour as the spices steep in the hot vinegar.
Celery seed
Contributes a savoury, earthy aroma to the brine.

The step that matters

Squeezing the cabbage dry. Salting draws water out of the cabbage, and squeezing removes the excess liquid so the pickle stays crisp and the vinegar brine is not diluted.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cider, vinegar, mustard, 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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