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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage prepared with vinegar, spices, and barberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove 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 ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer leaves and finely shred the red cabbages.

  2. Mix the shredded cabbage with salt and tie it in a thin cloth.

  3. Let it hang for 12 hours.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place the cabbage in small jars.

  2. Boil vinegar with barberries, then let it cool.

  3. Pour the cooled vinegar over the cabbage.

  4. Alternatively, boil the vinegar with ginger, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and cloves, then cool it and pour it over the cabbage.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbages
Forms the main body of the pickle and holds the crunchy texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the shredded cabbage, leaving it firmer and less watery.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that gives the cabbage its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Hanging the salted cabbage. Salt draws water out of the shredded cabbage through osmosis. Hanging it in a cloth lets that liquid drain away, so the cabbage stays crisp rather than soggy in the vinegar.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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