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To Stew Red Cabbage

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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, wash it, and cook with onion, pepper, salt, and gravy over low heat.

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

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

  8. Cover and stew for three hours until very tender.

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

  10. 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. 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 bulk of the stew and becomes tender and soft during long, slow cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed cabbage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the cabbage keep its colour.
Broth
Supplies moisture and savoury depth as the cabbage stews.
Pounded sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stew until very tender. Red cabbage is tough and fibrous, so it needs long, gentle simmering to soften fully. Adding vinegar too early can slow softening, so the cabbage should be tender before the final acidic and boiling steps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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