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Corn Relish

A pickled relish made with corn, cabbage, peppers, onions, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, and optional celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the corn from the cob and chop the cabbage, peppers, and onions.

Make the relish

  1. Boil the vinegar, then add the sugar and salt.

  2. Mix the mustard and turmeric with a little cold vinegar to make a paste.

  3. Add the paste to the boiling vinegar and stir until smooth.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables and cook for 30 minutes.

  5. If desired, add celery seed.

  6. Seal the relish while hot.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Corn
Provides sweetness and crisp-tender bulk to the relish.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body that holds up through the cooking.
Onions
Contributes savory depth and aroma as they soften in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Gives the relish its acidity and acts as the preserving liquid.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that defines the relish.

The step that matters

Mixing the mustard and turmeric into a paste before adding it to the boiling vinegar. Dry mustard and turmeric clump if added directly to hot liquid. Blending them first with a little cold vinegar lets them disperse evenly, so the sauce turns smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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