Name: Pepper Sauce
Ingredients: 2 dozen peppers; 4 dozen cabbage; 1 root of horseradish, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon mustard seed; 2 teaspoons cloves; 2 tablespoons sugar; a little mace; 2 quarts cider vinegar

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the spices and sugar in 2 quarts of cider vinegar.
Pour the boiling mixture over the chopped cabbage and peppers.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together481 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar: Provides the sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Cabbage: Makes up most of the bulk and adds a crisp, fibrous texture.
Peppers: Supply the main body of the sauce and its sharp, fresh flavor.
Horseradish: Adds a sharp, pungent heat that comes out more when finely chopped.
Mustard seed: Contributes a sharp, slightly bitter flavor to the vinegar.

Swap the mace

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

Allspicefits better
Cinnamonfits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, horseradish, mustard, clove, sugar, cider. 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.