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Sweet Corn Relish

A pickled relish made from corn, cabbage, onions, and red peppers with vinegar, salt, sugar, flour, mustard, and turmeric.

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 ↓

Sweet Corn Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the corn, cabbage, onions, and red peppers using a food chopper.

  2. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with vinegar, salt, sugar, flour, mustard, and turmeric.

Cook and seal

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  2. Seal the relish in glass jars.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 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

Corn
Provides sweetness and bulk, and keeps its texture as the relish cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish becomes less watery.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that complements the sweet vegetables.
Turmeric
Gives the relish its yellow color and a mild, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 30 minutes. Boiling long enough softens the vegetables and lets the flour thicken the vinegar mixture. Too short a boil leaves the relish watery and raw-tasting, and it may not be stable for sealing in jars.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cabbage, pepper, vinegar, sugar, flour, mustard. 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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