Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage preserved in vinegar, ginger, pepper, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Slice the red cabbage thinly.

  2. Place the sliced cabbage in an earthen dish and cover the dish.

  3. Let it stand for two days.

  4. Drain the cabbage through a sieve.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil the vinegar with ginger, black pepper, and alum.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cabbage and cover it tightly.

  3. Once cooled, seal the jar with leather.

  4. Let it sit for a few days before using.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cauliflowertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

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 pickle and carries the flavor of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the cabbage.
Alum
Helps the cabbage keep a firm, crisp texture during pickling.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the pickling liquid.
Whole black pepper
Adds a mild, pungent aroma and spice to the liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cabbage and cover it tightly. Hot liquid penetrates the drained cabbage more readily and speeds flavor uptake, while covering traps aroma and keeps the cabbage submerged and protected from contamination.

Swap the cauliflower

The recipe marks cauliflower as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar, ginger, pepper, hazelnut):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

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

You might also like

Red CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipes