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Pickled Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage made by salting, brining, and fermenting cabbage with vinegar, ginger, pepper, and optional cayenne.

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 ↓

Pickled Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer decayed leaves from the cabbage.

  2. Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the stalks.

  3. Slice the cabbage very thinly and lay it on a dish.

  4. Sprinkle the cabbage generously with coarse sea salt and cover with another dish.

  5. Let it sit for 24 hours to drain.

  6. If necessary, wipe the cabbage lightly with a clean cloth.

Make the pickle and jar

  1. Place the cabbage in a jar.

  2. Boil the vinegar with ginger, black pepper, and cayenne (if using).

  3. Allow the vinegar to cool, then pour it over the cabbage.

  4. Seal the jar and store in a dry place.

  5. The pickled cabbage will be ready in a week or two.

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

Red cabbage
Provides the main bulk and crisp texture that holds up to pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the sliced cabbage so it stays crisp in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and sharpens its flavour.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth that infuses into the hot vinegar.
Whole black pepper
Adds a mild, spiced aroma that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage for 24 hours. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage through osmosis. If the cabbage is not salted generously and left long enough, it stays wet, which dilutes the vinegar and leaves the pickle soft instead of crisp.

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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