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German Red Cabbage

A German dish of finely shaved red cabbage simmered with apples, onions, sherry, vinegar, sugar, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Shave the red cabbage very fine.

  2. Slowly add the cabbage to 1 quart of boiling water.

  3. Add the chopped onion, apples, salt, pepper, and allspice.

  4. Stir in the sherry, vinegar, and sugar.

  5. Add the butter and let it simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  6. Serve 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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cabbage + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Red cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Apples
Add sweetness and body that softens into the braise.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and sherry with sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that keeps the cabbage bright red rather than turning blue-purple.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked cabbage.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar with the sherry and sugar, not before the cabbage has been added to the water. Red cabbage pigments change color with pH: acid keeps it red, while neutral or alkaline conditions turn it blue or purplish. Adding the acid at the right point in the simmer helps the cabbage keep its characteristic color.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, apple, pepper, allspice, sherry, vinegar, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, apple, pepper, allspice, sherry, vinegar, sugar. 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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