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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage prepared with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into small pieces and remove the outer leaves.

  2. Place the cabbage in a sieve.

  3. Sprinkle the cabbage with coarse sea salt and saltpetre.

  4. Let the cabbage drain for 24 hours.

  5. Squeeze the cabbage until very dry.

Pickle

  1. Place the cabbage in a jar with whole pepper and salt.

  2. Pour cold vinegar over the cabbage without boiling 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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and provides the crisp texture that the salt draws water from.
Saltpetre
Helps the cabbage keep its color and firmness during pickling.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Pour cold vinegar without boiling it. Heating the vinegar can soften the cabbage and drive off its sharpness, leaving a limp, less crisp pickle. Keeping the vinegar cold preserves the cabbage's crunch.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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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