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Cabbage Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made from cabbage, onions, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cabbage Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped cabbage, coarse sea salt, chopped onions, cinnamon, whole cloves, and brown sugar.

  2. Add enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a stone jar and boil for 2 hours, covering the jar while boiling.

Seal

  1. Seal the jars while hot.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and provides its crisp, fibrous texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its tang.
Onions
Contribute savory flavour and moisture to the mixture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture with the jar covered. Boiling for the full two hours with the jar covered lets the cabbage soften and absorb the vinegar and sugar syrup. Sealing the jars while hot helps create a vacuum seal, but the cabbage must be fully covered by the liquid so it does not spoil at the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cinnamon, clove, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cinnamon, clove, sugar, 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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