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Red Cabbage Slaw

A fermented cabbage salad made with salt, vinegar, mace, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Red Cabbage Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Shave the cabbage and place it in a jar or bowl.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the cabbage and let it stand for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the cabbage and let it stand for 1 hour.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil the vinegar with mace and black pepper for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain out the spices and pour the hot vinegar over the cabbage until covered.

Store

  1. Tie a cloth over the jar and set it aside for use.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 slaw and provides its crisp texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavor.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves and sharpens the slaw, and the liquid that covers the cabbage.
Whole mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the vinegar.
Whole black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic spice flavor to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt has already pulled much of the water from the cabbage during the long rest. Draining removes that liquid and the excess salt, so the slaw is not overly salty or watery, and the hot vinegar can cover the cabbage without diluting.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, 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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