Skip to main content
Main

Red Cabbage

A boiled cabbage dish flavored with oil, butter, vinegar, onion, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Red Cabbage

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 ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the red cabbage into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Boil the cabbage in water until tender.

  2. Drain the cabbage and place it in a stewpan.

  3. Add oil, butter, water, vinegar, chopped onion, pepper, and salt.

  4. Simmer until all the liquid is evaporated.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the dish and softens into a tender, sweet-savoury vegetable.
Oil
Carries fat through the dish, adding richness and helping the flavours spread.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, rich flavour to the cooked cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the cabbage keep its colour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Simmer until all the liquid is evaporated. Stopping too early leaves the cabbage watery, while cooking too long can dry it out and scorch the fats and onion on the pan. Watching the liquid reduce keeps the texture moist but not soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More red cabbage recipes

Pickled 102Stewed 29Stew 18Pickle 11Salad 11Pickles 10 See all 19 →

You might also like

Stewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipesScalloped CabbageScalloped Cabbage16 recipes