What spices go with cabbage

Structural across central and northern Europe rather than optional. Sauerkraut without caraway is recognisably a different thing, and the same holds for braised red cabbage and most of the cabbage dishes of the region. The sharp carvone note meets the sulphurous edge of cooked cabbage instead of being buried by it, which very few spices manage.

How: Whole seed in a pot of sauerkraut; With apple and vinegar in braised red cabbage

Add alongside: Juniper, Black pepper, Bay leaf

Coleslaw dressing is where most people meet celery seed without naming it. Raw cabbage is watery and sulphurous and needs something aromatic and slightly bitter to sit against it, and celery seed does that where a leafy herb would wilt into the dressing.

How: In a mayonnaise or vinegar coleslaw dressing; In a cabbage pickle

Add alongside: Mustard seed, Black pepper, Sugar

Sauerkraut and choucroute, where juniper is close to definitional. Fermented cabbage is sour, sulphurous and assertive, and juniper is one of very few spices that meets it rather than being buried by it.

How: Whole berries in a pot of sauerkraut; In braised red cabbage with apple

Add alongside: Caraway, Bay leaf, Black pepper

A Northern and Eastern European standing pair, and it is really a pairing with fermentation as much as with the vegetable. Cabbage is sulphurous and, once soured, sharply acidic; the carvone in dill seed cuts through both and adds a warmth that keeps a plate of sauerkraut or braised cabbage from reading as merely sour.

How: Whole seed in sauerkraut and pickled cabbage; Toasted and stirred through braised or fried cabbage

Add alongside: Caraway, Juniper, Black pepper

• A teaspoon is generous for a large pan. Dill seed is more assertive than its size suggests and easy to overdo by eye.

Cabbage is sulfurous and sweet in equal measure and gets more so with cooking. Savory’s peppery sharpness cuts the sweetness and gives the sulfur something to sit behind, which is why it appears in Balkan and central European cabbage dishes and in pickling brines.

How: In a braised cabbage dish; In a pickling brine with the cucumbers or cabbage

Add alongside: Caraway, Black pepper, Juniper