Name: To Pickle Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 head of cabbage; Coarse sea salt; Peppercorns; A pinch of mace; A pinch of cinnamon; A pinch of allspice; Vinegar; A small amount of alum

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the loose leaves from the cabbage and cut it into shreds with a sharp knife.
Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt in the bottom of a keg or jar.
Add a layer of cabbage, then sprinkle with salt, peppercorns, mace, cinnamon, and allspice.
Repeat layering cabbage and spices until the jar is full.
Heat the vinegar until scalding hot, add a little alum, and pour it over the cabbage while hot.
Turn the vinegar over the cabbage six or seven times, heating it scalding hot each time, to make the cabbage tender.

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.

Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cabbage + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together443 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together336 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the mace

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

Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.