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Red Cabbage

A cooked dish of finely minced red cabbage simmered with fat, vinegar, sugar, salt, caraway seeds, and optional apples, onions, or salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Caraway and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash the cabbage and cut it into quarters.

  2. Mince the cabbage very fine.

  3. Boil the minced cabbage in a little water for 20 minutes in an earthenware pot.

Braise

  1. Add the fat or oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, and caraway seeds.

  2. Cook everything together for several hours.

  3. If using, add the apples, and remove them when done.

  4. If desired, add chopped onion or a piece of salt pork.

Thicken and finish

  1. When the cabbage is tender, thicken with browned flour.

  2. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cabbage + carawaytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into a tender, braised texture over long cooking.
Fat or oil
Carries flavor and adds richness, helping the cabbage stay moist during long cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps the cabbage keep its red color.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds a touch of sweetness.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a body-rich sauce as the dish finishes.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour. Add the flour only once the cabbage is tender, then cook it a few minutes more. Flour added too early or left raw can taste pasty, and it needs time in hot liquid to thicken fully and lose its raw taste.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, sugar, caraway, flour, pork, apple):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, sugar, caraway, flour, pork, apple. 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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