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To Pickle Red Cabbage

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 and place it in an earthen dish.

  2. Cover the dish and let it stand for 2 days.

  3. Drain the cabbage through a sieve.

Pickle and seal

  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 and 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, giving it its crisp, sliceable texture.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives it its tang.
Alum
Helps firm the cabbage so it stays crisp in the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the pickling liquid.
Black pepper
Adds mild pungency and aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining the cabbage well. Water left on the cabbage dilutes the hot vinegar mixture, weakening its acidity and reducing its preserving effect. Draining thoroughly before pouring over the vinegar keeps the brine strong.

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.

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