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Pickled Cabbage

A pickled cabbage preserved with salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, and celery seed, then stored for six weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Halve and quarter the cabbage heads and lay them in a wooden tray.

  2. Sprinkle thickly with coarse sea salt and set in the cellar until the next day.

  3. Drain and wipe the cabbage dry, then lay it in the sun for 2 hours.

  4. Cover the cabbage with cold vinegar for 12 hours.

Pickle and store

  1. Season with equal parts of mace, cloves, and whole white peppers, and add 1 cup of sugar for every gallon of vinegar, along with 1 teaspoon of celery seed for every pint.

  2. Pack the cabbage in a stone jar.

  3. Boil the vinegar and spices for 5 minutes, then pour it hot over the cabbage.

  4. Set the jar away in a cool, dry place for 6 weeks.

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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  2. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the crisp body of the pickle and absorbs the brine flavours.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Salting and drying the cabbage. Enough salt must draw out moisture so the cabbage stays crisp rather than soggy. Wiping it fully dry before the vinegar is added keeps the brine from diluting and helps the pickle keep its texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, sugar, mace, clove, celery):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, sugar, mace, clove, 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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