Name: Green Pepper Mangoes
Ingredients: firm green peppers; a few red peppers; salt; chopped cabbage; green tomatoes; coarse sea salt; mustard seed; ground cloves; brown sugar

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

Select firm green peppers and a few red ones for color.
Remove the tops and seeds from the peppers.
Soak the peppers overnight in salt water.
Fill the peppers with a mixture of chopped cabbage and green tomatoes, seasoned with coarse sea salt, mustard seed, and ground cloves.
Boil enough water to cover the peppers with a cup of brown sugar.
Pour the syrup over the filled peppers each morning for three days.
Seal the jars after the final pour.

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.

Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,829 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the tomato

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

Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Broccolifits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, mustard, clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.