Waverley Root's Agrigento Red Cabbage with Black Olives and Capers Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

Why add vinegar to red cabbage? ›

Lock in the colour by adding a touch of vinegar when cooking red cabbage in water. This stops the lovely deep purple hue from running. Don't be too heavy-handed with red cabbage. A lot of its frumpy reputation comes from it being over-pickled or boiled for an eon.

Red and green cabbage can be used interchangeably in most recipes. The difference between cooking green cabbage and red cabbage is just one extra step. The compounds that give red cabbage its color, called anthocyanins, are water-soluble and will turn an unappetizing blue color when cooked.

When cooked in an alkaline liquid like water, red cabbage turns blue. Adding vinegar, lemon juice, or another acid helps the cabbage to retain its red-purple color. Vinegar is also a bright flavor complement to the bold, earthy taste of the cabbage.

The secret is to shred it quite finely and cook it briefly in rapidly boiling water. What I do is pack it down quite tightly into a saucepan, sprinkle with salt, then place the pan over a high heat, pour in boiling water from the kettle, which re-boils instantly, and time it for 3-5 minutes.

Crisp it up: Shredded cabbage stays perky if it's soaked in cold water. This also helps cut the pungent edge. Drain well before combining with other ingredients.

The baking soda will turn the cabbage juice greenish-yellow because it is a base (sodium bicarbonate). Try This Use science vocabulary: Use related science words such as acids, bases, solution, chemistry and indicator as you talk and play together.

As long as they are acidic they stay red, but when they become non-acidic they turn blue. When you sauté red cabbage, the acids evaporate off and it can turn blue. All you have to do is add lemon juice or vinegar to bring back the bright red color.

One way to make raw cabbage less bitter, and therefore more palatable, is to let it marinate in something salty or acidic for a while. Sauerkraut for example tastes much less bitter, plus contains helpful friendly bacteria from natural fermentation, but it takes a while to make.

Before cooking, remove any tired or discoloured leaves and always cook red cabbage with a little vinegar. This preserves the beautiful purple colour – without it, the cabbage will turn blue!

The color of the cabbage indicator will change to red or pink if the solution is an acid and it will change to green or yellow if it is a base. It will remain purple or blue if the test solution is neutral.