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White Cabbage

A pickled white cabbage preserved with mustard seed, garlic, turmeric, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut and salt the cabbages as you would red cabbage.

  2. Place the cut cabbage in a deep earthen pot, cover it, and let it stand in the cellar for a week, turning it daily.

  3. Remove the cabbage and drain the brine on a coarse cloth.

Pickle

  1. In a jar, combine the cabbage with mustard seed, garlic, and turmeric.

  2. Boil the vinegar with long pepper, white pepper, Cayenne, ginger, and mace.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the cabbage mixture, stir well, and keep it covered from air.

  4. Stir daily for a month 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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White cabbages
Form the main body of the pickle and absorb the vinegar and spices as it softens.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that stands up to the vinegar.
Garlic
Contributes a pungent, savoury aroma that deepens during the long pickling.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour and a mild earthy flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cabbage and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Keeping the pickle covered and stirring daily. Vinegar-based pickles spoil when exposed to air, where mould and yeast can grow. Covering the jar limits air contact, and regular stirring spreads the vinegar evenly so the cabbage pickles uniformly over the month.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, mustard, garlic, turmeric, vinegar, pepper, ginger. 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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