Skip to main content
Main

Red Cabbage

Pickled red cabbage made with vinegar, salt, ginger, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Red Cabbage

Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Place the cochineal in a small bag and boil it with vinegar.

  2. Add a little salt and coarse sea salt.

  3. Once boiling, add sliced cabbage and seal it in the vinegar.

  4. Boil the vinegar again, adding ginger and pepper.

  5. Let the mixture cool completely.

Pickle and seal

  1. Transfer the cabbage to jars and pour the cooled pickle over it.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Cochineal
Provides the red colour that gives the pickled cabbage its appearance.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cabbage and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cabbage (in the method)
Forms the crisp, pickled vegetable body of the dish.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before pouring it over the cabbage. Pouring hot pickle over the cabbage in jars would soften it and can crack glass jars or cook the vegetable further, so cooling first keeps it crisp and the jars safe.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes