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To Stew Red Cabbage

A stew of sliced red cabbage cooked with butter, vinegar, onions, and seasonings, served with fried sausages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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To Stew 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 ↓

To Stew Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the cabbage and wash it.

  2. Place it in a saucepan with pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. Stew until tender, then add vinegar and bring to a boil.

  4. Serve with cold meat or sausages.

  5. Alternatively, shred the cabbage and wash it.

  6. Cook over low heat with onion, pepper, salt, and gravy until tender.

  7. Before serving, add butter mixed with flour and vinegar, then boil.

  8. For another method, cut the cabbage thin and place it in a stew-pan with ham, butter, broth, and vinegar.

  9. Cover and stew for 3 hours until very tender.

  10. Add more broth, salt, pepper, and sugar, mix well, and boil until the liquid is gone.

  11. Serve with fried sausages on top.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, braised texture during stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the cabbage stew softly without drying out.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps the cabbage keep its bright red color.
Broth
Provides liquid for stewing and adds savory depth to the cabbage.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil until the liquid is gone. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavors and thickens the sauce; if it is left too wet the dish stays watery, and if boiled too hard the sugar and vinegar can scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

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