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Pickx-ed Red Cabbage

A fermented pickle made from sliced red cabbage, salt, vinegar, and optional beetroot and cauliflower.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickx-ed Red Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Slice the cabbage into a colander and sprinkle each layer with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let it drain for two days.

Pickle and serve

  1. Transfer the cabbage to a jar and pour in enough boiling vinegar to cover it.

  2. Add a few slices of red beet-root for color.

  3. Optionally, add salted cauliflower cut into bunches for a beautiful red appearance.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vinegar + cauliflowertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Purple red cabbage
Forms the main body of the pickle and absorbs the vinegar and color.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage, softening it and concentrating its texture.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Red beet-root
Adds red pigment to the liquid, deepening the color of the pickle.

The step that matters

Covering the cabbage with boiling vinegar. The cabbage must stay fully submerged so air cannot reach it and spoil the pickle. Vinegar at the right acidity keeps the pickling safe and firm.

Swap the cauliflower

The recipe marks cauliflower as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, 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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