Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage preserved with salt, vinegar, ginger, allspice, and peppercorns.

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

Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Select the finest red cabbage and cut it very thin.

  2. Sprinkle a handful of coarse sea salt over the cabbage and let it drain on sieves for two days.

  3. Pack the drained cabbage into jars.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. Boil vinegar with sliced ginger, allspice, and black peppercorns.

  2. Add a little pounded cochineal to the vinegar while boiling.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cabbage in the jars.

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cabbage + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together443 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 pickle and provides the crisp texture once salted and drained.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, firming it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Cochineal
Adds a red colour to the pickling liquid, which is optional in this recipe.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cabbage for two days. Salt pulls water out of the cabbage through osmosis. Draining long enough removes enough moisture so the cabbage stays crisp and the pickling liquid is not diluted.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, allspice. 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 recipesCabbage DressingCabbage Dressing19 recipes