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To Pickle Ree Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage made with salt, vinegar, ginger, peppers, and optional colorings.

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 ↓

To Pickle Ree Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage and place it in a colander.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with coarse sea salt and let it drain for 2 to 3 hours.

Pickle

  1. Transfer the cabbage to jars and pour enough cold vinegar over it to cover.

  2. Add ginger, peppers, and a few grains of cochineal or sliced red beet root for color.

  3. Optionally, add sliced cauliflower for a fine color.

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. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. 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 main body of the pickle and gives it its crisp texture.
Cold vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and covers the cabbage to preserve it through pickling.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Peppers
Adds heat and a sharper flavour to the pickle.
Cochineal or red beet root
Provides the red colour that gives the pickle its appearance.

The step that matters

Salt and drain the cabbage. Salt draws water out of the cabbage layers. Draining well keeps the cabbage crisp and stops excess water from diluting the vinegar, so the pickle stays firm and well flavoured.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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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