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Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage prepared by soaking, drying, boiling vinegar with spices, then cooking the cabbage until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Soak the cabbage in brine for 4 days.

  2. Remove the cabbage and place it on a cloth to dry for 2 days.

Pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar with the spices for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the cabbage to the boiling vinegar and cook until the cabbage is clear.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Turmeric + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 becomes translucent as it cooks in the hot vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle and carries the spice flavours.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness and a molasses note.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickle its spiciness.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and a slight sharpness that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cooking the cabbage in the boiling vinegar. Cabbage cooked too long turns soft and mushy, while too little heat leaves it raw and crisp. Adding it to the vinegar only once it is boiling keeps the heat steady and the texture even.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, sugar, ginger, pepper, mustard, turmeric):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, sugar, ginger, pepper, mustard, turmeric. 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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