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Green Pepper Mangoes

A pickled stuffed green pepper filled with cabbage and green tomatoes, seasoned with mustard seed, cloves, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Pepper Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Select firm green peppers and a few red ones for decoration.

  2. Remove the tops and seeds from the peppers.

  3. Soak the peppers overnight in salt water.

Fill and pickle

  1. Fill the peppers with chopped cabbage and green tomatoes, seasoned with coarse sea salt, mustard seed, and ground cloves.

  2. Sew the tops back on the peppers.

  3. Boil enough vinegar to cover the peppers, adding 1 cup of brown sugar.

  4. Pour the vinegar mixture over the filled peppers for three mornings, then seal.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm green peppers
Form the hollow vessels that hold the filling and give the pickle its crisp body.
Chopped cabbage
Provides the bulk of the filling and a crunchy texture after pickling.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body to the filling as they soften in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid, adding sharp acidity that preserves the peppers and filling.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness and depth.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar mixture over the filled peppers for three mornings. The vinegar must fully cover the peppers and be poured again over several days so acid and salt penetrate the filling. Repeated pouring draws flavour in evenly and keeps the pickle safely acidic before sealing.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, mustard, clove, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, mustard, clove, 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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