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Corn Salad Relish

A relish made from chopped red sweet peppers, coarse sea salt, mustard, vinegar, and light brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Salad Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the red sweet peppers.

Make the relish

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped peppers, coarse sea salt, mustard, vinegar, and light brown sugar.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until tender.

Jar

  1. Seal the relish in sterilized 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Red sweet peppers
Provide the main body and sweet, fresh pepper flavor of the relish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the relish.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the relish its tang and helps preserve it.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook until tender. Cooking over medium heat softens the peppers and lets the vinegar and sugar meld into a cohesive relish. Undercooked peppers stay firm and taste raw, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and make the mixture too thick.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cabbagefits less well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, 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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