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Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage with salt, vinegar, cloves, mace, allspice, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cabbage

  1. Slice the cabbage crosswise.

  2. Place it in a dish and sprinkle salt over it.

  3. Cover with another dish and let it sit for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the cabbage in a colander and transfer it to a jar.

Pickle and seal

  1. Add enough white wine vinegar to cover the cabbage.

  2. Add the cloves, mace, all-spice, and bruised cochineal.

  3. Boil the mixture and pour it over the cabbage, either hot or cold.

  4. If using hot vinegar, let it cool before sealing the jar.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cabbage + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. White wine + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 its crisp texture and colour base.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
White wine vinegar
Acidifies the cabbage, preserving it and giving the pickle its sharp tang.
Cochineal
Supplies a natural red colour that is pronounced in the acidic vinegar.

The step that matters

Letting the cabbage sit for 24 hours under salt. Salt must draw out enough moisture to soften the cabbage; too short a rest leaves it crunchy and less receptive to the vinegar. Draining properly also keeps the pickle from being diluted.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, clove, mace):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, clove, mace. 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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