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German Red Cabbage

A braised red cabbage dish with apples, onions, sherry, vinegar, sugar, and butter.

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

Make the cabbage

  1. In a large pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Add the finely shaved red cabbage and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in the chopped onion, apples, salt, pepper, allspice, sherry, vinegar, and sugar.

  4. Reduce heat and let the mixture simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Serve

  1. 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 turns tender as it simmers slowly.
Apples
Add natural sweetness and body that softens into the braising liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the simmering liquid.
Vinegar
Brightens the flavor and keeps the cabbage's red color bright.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and sherry with sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished cabbage.

The step that matters

Simmering time. Simmering for 1.5 to 2 hours breaks down the cabbage's tough fibers slowly, so it becomes tender without going mushy. Stopping early leaves it firm and sharp-tasting.

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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