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To Pickle Red Cabbage

A method for pickling red cabbage with vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the cabbage into slips and wash it clean.

  2. Place the cabbage in a pan with plenty of coarse sea salt for two days.

  3. Drain the cabbage on a large sieve until dry.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil vinegar with bruised black pepper, mace, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and mustard seed for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the vinegar and let it cool.

  3. Add a little bruised cochineal to the cooled vinegar.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the cabbage tightly into jars.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the cabbage or add it once cooled before sealing 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Provides the main bulk, and its crisp leaves soften slightly as the salt and vinegar work on them.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage through osmosis, so it wilts and drains before pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the cabbage and sharpens its flavour while the spices infuse it.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the salted cabbage until dry. Residual water dilutes the vinegar and weakens its preserving acidity, and it can make the pickle soggy. Thorough draining keeps the cabbage crisp and the brine effective.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg. 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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