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Red Cabbage

Cooked red cabbage with vinegar, sugar, salt, caraway seeds, browned flour, optional onion and salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Wash and quarter the red cabbage, then mince it very finely.

  2. Place the minced cabbage in a pot with a little water and boil for 20 minutes.

Braise and thicken

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

  2. Cook everything together for several hours.

  3. If desired, add chopped onion and a piece of salt pork for flavor.

  4. Once the cabbage is tender, thicken the mixture with browned flour and 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 + 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 main body of the dish and softens into a tender, braised vegetable base.
Fat or oil
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavor through the long cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps the cabbage keep its red colour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid to a glossy, spoonable consistency.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour. Add the browned flour only once the cabbage is tender and cook it a few minutes more. Flour added too early or not cooked through can leave the sauce pasty or floury-tasting, while stirring it in evenly prevents lumps.

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):

  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. 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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