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Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage preserved with salt, vinegar, clove, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Salt

  1. Slice the cabbage crosswise and place it in a dish.

  2. Sprinkle the cabbage well with coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover the salted cabbage with another dish.

  4. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  5. Drain the cabbage in a colander.

Pickle

  1. Place the drained cabbage in a jar.

  2. Cover the cabbage with food vinegar.

  3. Add the clove and mace to the jar.

  4. Seal the jar tightly.

  5. Store the jar in a cool place.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together415 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Provides the main body of the pickle and its colour, which can shift with the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Food vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Clove
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that complements the vinegar and cabbage.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the cabbage. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage through osmosis. Draining well removes excess liquid so the vinegar is not diluted and the cabbage stays crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, clove. 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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