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Sour Cabbage

A cabbage dish cooked with vinegar, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sour Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the lard or frying fat in a pot.

  2. Add the vinegar and stir.

  3. Incorporate the sliced cabbage, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add enough water to prevent burning.

  5. Cook for about 30 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.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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 dish and softens as it cooks, becoming tender and mellow.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Lard or frying fat
Carries heat through the pot and adds richness and savoury depth to the cabbage.

The step that matters

Add enough water to prevent burning. Cabbage has little free liquid at the start, so without added water the sugars and fat can scorch on the pot base during the long cook. Enough water keeps the pan from burning while the cabbage softens.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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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