Skip to main content
Main

Yellow Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage dish flavored with vinegar, sugar, mustard, spices, ginger, turmeric, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Yellow Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Scald the cabbage in strong salt water until you can pierce it with a straw.

  2. Drain the cabbage for a day.

  3. Soak the cabbage in plain vinegar overnight, then drain again for another day.

Prepare the onions

  1. Scald the onions, sprinkle with salt, and let them sit for a day.

  2. Drain off the water from the onions and add them to the spiced vinegar.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage (in the method)
Salt water and vinegar soaking softens it so it becomes tender and pickles well.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acid preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Onions
Salting and draining draw out water so they stay crisp in the spiced vinegar.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that deepens as the pickles stand.

The step that matters

Scald the cabbage in strong salt water until you can pierce it with a straw.. Scalding softens the cabbage's tough cell structure so it absorbs the brine and pickling liquid evenly. Underdone cabbage stays tough and crunchy, while overcooked cabbage turns mushy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, ginger, turmeric, nutmeg, 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipes