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To Pickle Bed Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage preserved with salt, vinegar, and beetroot for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Bed Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage into a colander.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let it drain for two days.

Pickle

  1. Transfer the cabbage to a jar.

  2. Pour enough boiling vinegar over it to cover.

  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
Forms the main body of the pickle and absorbs the vinegar and salt flavours.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage layers during draining, softening it and concentrating flavour.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled cabbage.
Red beet-root
Adds colour to the pickling liquid and cabbage.

The step that matters

Sprinkle each layer with coarse sea salt. Salt must reach every layer so the cabbage drains evenly and stays crisp; missed areas can stay wet or spoil.

“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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