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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into strips and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Place the cabbage in a pan with plenty of coarse sea salt for two days.

  3. Drain the cabbage on a large sieve until dry.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the cabbage for half an hour with bruised black pepper, mace, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and mustard seed.

  2. Strain the vinegar and let it cool.

  3. Add a little bruised cochineal to the cooled vinegar.

Pack and pickle

  1. Pack the cabbage tightly into jars and pour the cooled vinegar over it.

  2. Seal the jars and store them to allow the cabbage to pickle.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 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

Red cabbage
Forms the crisp, sturdy body of the pickle that holds its texture under brine and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Cochineal
Adds a deep red-purple colour to the vinegar, which is absorbed by the cabbage.

The step that matters

Drying the cabbage before packing. Salted cabbage must be drained well so excess water does not dilute the vinegar in the jars, which would weaken the acidity and reduce preservation.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg. 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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