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To Stew Red Cabbage

A slow‑cooked dish of sliced red cabbage simmered in butter, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Stew Red Cabbage

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Strip the outer leaves from the red cabbage and wash it well.

  2. Cut the cabbage into the thinnest possible slices, starting at the top.

Stew

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced cabbage, pepper, and salt, and stir well.

  3. Stew the cabbage very slowly for 3 to 4 hours, stirring often and pressing it down.

  4. When tender, add the vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve the cabbage in a hot dish, optionally with broiled sausages or a mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and gravy.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cabbage + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together397 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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 bulk of the dish and softens into tender strands during long stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cabbage cook gently without scorching.
Vinegar
Adds acidity at the end, brightening the flavour and helping the cabbage keep its colour.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly over low heat. Cabbage cooked too fast or at high heat can scorch and turn bitter or grey, while slow, low heat with occasional stirring lets it soften evenly into tender strands.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Plumfits about as well

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