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Sweet Pepper Relish

A relish made from chopped red and green peppers, onions, sugar, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet Pepper Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the red and green peppers and onions finely.

  2. Cover with boiling water and let stand for 15 minutes.

Cook and jar

  1. Drain the mixture and add the vinegar, sugar, and salt, which have been boiled together.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes, then bottle or can the relish.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Red peppers
Add bulk, colour and a mild, sweet pepper flavour to the relish.
Green peppers
Add bulk and a fresher, slightly grassy pepper flavour.
Onions
Add sharp aroma and savoury depth that mellows as the relish cooks.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for tang and helps keep the relish stable in the jar.

The step that matters

Cook for 5 minutes, then bottle or can the relish.. The relish needs to be fully hot and well mixed with the vinegar and sugar before jarring. Heat and acidity together help make the relish safe to store, so it should not be jarred early.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, vinegar. 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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