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To Pickle Red Cabbage

Pickled cabbage preserved with salt, vinegar, spices, and beet slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Pickle Red 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 two days.

Pickle

  1. Transfer the cabbage to a jar with spices.

  2. Pour enough boiling vinegar to cover the cabbage.

  3. Add a few slices of red beet root for 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 + 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

Purple red cabbage
Provides the main bulk and the crisp texture of the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage so it drains and becomes crisp rather than soggy.
Boiling vinegar
Acidifies the cabbage, giving the pickle its sour flavour and preserving it.
Red beet root
Adds colour to the pickling liquid and the cabbage.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage for two days. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage through osmosis. Each layer needs an even sprinkle and enough time to drain, otherwise the cabbage stays watery and the pickle turns soft and dilute.

“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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