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Red Cabbage

A pickled red cabbage prepared by salting, fermenting, and seasoning with cider vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Red Cabbage

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cabbage into thin, long strips.

  2. Pack the cabbage in layers with coarse sea salt in between.

  3. Place a weight on top and let it stand for 24 hours.

Pickle

  1. Drain the cabbage and pour cider vinegar over it, adding mixed spices.

  2. Put a weight on top again.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  3. Cabbage + cidertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexan-1-ol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the main body of the pickle and absorbs the salt, vinegar and spices.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its flavour during the resting time.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the cabbage its sharp, pickled taste and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Draining before adding the vinegar. The salt has drawn out a lot of liquid. If the cabbage is not drained well, the extra water dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickling brine, so the flavour and keeping quality suffer.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, 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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