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Pickled Red Cabbage

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and ginger work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 545 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut off the stalks and damaged outer leaves of the cabbage.

  2. Shred the cabbage with a vegetable shredder.

  3. Lay the shredded cabbage in a large shallow dish and sprinkle with salt.

  4. Let it sit for two days to accumulate purple liquor.

  5. Strain off the liquor and pack the cabbage into jars.

  6. Sprinkle black peppercorns and bruised ginger with each handful of cabbage.

  7. Fill the jars with equal parts white wine vinegar and water.

  8. Cover the jars securely and let them sit for a few days before using.

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

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

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Ginger + white winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + white winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, white wine, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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