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Pickled Cabbage

A cabbage pickle made with vinegar, spices, and salt, packed in jars and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage. Cut the cabbage in half and remove the stalk.

  2. Shred the cabbage into narrow slices.

  3. Sprinkle the shredded cabbage with salt and let it sit in a pan for 2 days.

  4. Drain the cabbage until completely dry.

Make the pickle

  1. Infuse the pepper, allspice, and ginger in the vinegar for 3 days in a sealed jar by the fire.

  2. Strain the pickle to remove solids and let it cool completely.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the cabbage lightly into jars until about ¾ full.

  2. Pour the cooled pickle over the cabbage in the jars.

  3. Seal the jars properly.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + capsicumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Allspice + capsicumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,862 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 of the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the shredded cabbage, softening it and concentrating flavor.
Strong vinegar
Acidity preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Ground pepper
Adds warm, pungent spice flavor to the infused pickle.
Ground allspice
Contributes aromatic, warm spice notes to the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain the cabbage until completely dry. Salted cabbage releases water; any moisture left in the cabbage dilutes the vinegar pickle and can weaken its preservation and crispness.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, capsicum):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, capsicum. 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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