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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A method for pickling red cabbage with vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the outer leaves and cut out the stalk of the cabbage.

  2. Quarter the cabbage lengthwise and cut it crosswise into thick slices.

  3. Place the cabbage in a sieve, sprinkle with salt and saltpetre, and let it drain for 24 hours.

  4. Squeeze the cabbage until very dry.

Pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar with the cloves, allspice, and mace for 5 minutes, then strain it.

  2. Put the cabbage into a stone jar and pour the boiling hot vinegar over it.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cabbage + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and provides the crisp, chewy texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, leaving it drier and crisper.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the cabbage firm and contributes to its preserving.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives it its sharp flavour.
Cloves and allspice
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Squeezing the cabbage until very dry. Removing as much water as possible before pickling keeps the cabbage crisp and stops the vinegar from being diluted, so the pickle keeps better and tastes sharper.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, allspice, mace. 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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