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Pickled Red Cabbage

A fermented cabbage dish preserved with salt, vinegar, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Pickled Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage very thinly into strips.

  2. Sprinkle well with coarse sea salt and set aside for 2 days.

  3. Drain off the liquid that forms.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Bottle the cabbage and pour over it boiled vinegar mixed with seasonings.

  2. Cover until cold, then cork well.

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

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and crisp as it cures.
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.

The step that matters

Sprinkle well with coarse sea salt and set aside for 2 days. Salt draws liquid out of the cabbage through osmosis. If the cabbage is under-salted or the liquid is not drained, the pickle may be watery and less crisp. Thorough salting and draining give a firmer result.

“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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