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Purple Cabbage

A pickled dish of purple cabbage, cauliflower, and beans seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper, ginger, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Purple Cabbage

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the cauliflowers, red cabbages, kidney beans, and garlic well. Boil them briefly, then drain.

  2. Lay the vegetables leaf by leaf on a large table and sprinkle with coarse sea salt and bay leaves.

  3. Dry them in the sun or in a 300°F (150°C) oven until completely dry.

Make the brine

  1. Boil the vinegar with water, coarse sea salt, and black pepper until combined, then let it cool.

Prepare the spices and assemble

  1. Cut the ginger into pieces, salt it, and let it sit for a week.

  2. Wash the mustard seed and let it dry, then bruise half of it.

  3. In a jar, layer the cabbage, cauliflowers, and other ingredients as desired.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbages
Provide the main bulk and the purple color of the pickle.
Cauliflowers
Add firm, crisp pieces that hold their texture in the jar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma and flavor to the pickle.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic bite that complements the sour brine.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables completely. Any moisture left on the vegetables dilutes the vinegar brine and encourages spoilage, so they must be fully dry before layering in the jar.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, cabbage, clove, garlic, vinegar, pepper, ginger):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cabbage, clove, garlic, vinegar, pepper, ginger. 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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