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Pickled Peppers

Pickled peppers are green peppers stuffed with a cabbage, onion, celery seed, and horseradish mixture, then preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Soak the peppers in strong salt water overnight.

  3. Shred the cabbage and mix it with celery seed, onions, and horseradish.

  4. Drain the peppers and stuff them with the cabbage mixture.

  5. Tie the halves together and place them in a stone jar.

Pickle and store

  1. Heat the vinegar and sugar to boiling, then pour over the peppers.

  2. Leave the peppers uncovered until cool, then cover securely and store in a cool place.

  3. They will be ready to serve in about three days.

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 + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Celery + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers
Provide the crisp, hollow shell that holds the filling and softens slightly during pickling.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the peppers and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a mild sweetness.
Cabbage
Forms the crunchy, moist filling that fills the pepper halves.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor to the cabbage filling.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Soak the peppers in strong salt water overnight. Salt draws water out of the peppers through osmosis, firming them and reducing excess moisture so they stay crisp rather than watery once pickled.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, cabbage, celery, horseradish. 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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