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Bell Pepper Pickles

A pickled dish of bell peppers stuffed with cabbage, onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bell Pepper Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Cut a slit in the side of the peppers and remove the seeds.

  2. Place the peppers in brine (4 cups salt to 1 gallon water) overnight.

  3. In the morning, pour off the brine from the peppers and replace it with clear water.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop onions and cabbage finely, sprinkling a little salt between each layer.

  2. Let the chopped vegetables stand overnight.

  3. Squeeze the brine from the cabbage and onions.

  4. Add the green and red chopped peppers, turmeric, celery seed, white mustard seed, cinnamon, black pepper, mustard, sugar, and vinegar to the squeezed vegetables. Mix thoroughly and let it stand for a while.

Stuff and pickle

  1. Wipe the peppers dry and fill them with the mixture, then sew the openings closed.

  2. Place the stuffed peppers in a jar and pour over them ½ gallon of vinegar mixed with 3 tumblers of sugar, boiled together.

  3. For 4 mornings, pour off and reheat the vinegar, scalding the peppers each time.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 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

Bell peppers
Form the stuffed container and hold the filling; the flesh softens during brining and scalding.
Cabbages
Add crisp bulk to the filling, and salting and squeezing removes water so it stays firm.
Onions
Add savory bulk and sharpness to the filling, mellowed by salting and pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the peppers and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming them and seasoning the brine.

The step that matters

Squeezing the brine from the cabbage and onions. Salted vegetables release a lot of water. If they are not squeezed well, the filling stays wet and dilutes the vinegar, leaving a soft, watery pickle.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, turmeric, celery, mustard, cinnamon, 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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