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Cabbage with Vinegar and Seasoning

A boiled cabbage dish flavored with pickled onions, gherkin, capers, vinegar, browned flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cabbage with Vinegar and Seasoning

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Remove the heart from the cabbage and boil it in two waters until three-quarters done.

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

Cook and finish

  1. Chop the pickled onions, gherkin, and capers, then add them to the cabbage.

  2. Pour in the vinegar, both from the pickles and plain, and cook for about 20 minutes.

  3. Thicken the mixture with browned flour and boil for a few more minutes.

  4. Add the butter, salt, and black pepper to taste, then serve immediately.

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. Capers + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Cabbage + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 dish and softens as it cooks, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness and gives the dish its tang.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture clings to the cabbage.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, smooth richness to the finished dish.
Pickled onions
Contribute sharpness and savoury depth from their brine and flesh.

The step that matters

Thicken with browned flour. Flour must be fully mixed in and boiled for a few minutes so its starch swells and thickens the liquid. Added without stirring well, it clumps and leaves the sauce floury and uneven.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, capers, vinegar, butter, flour, 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.

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