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Preserve

Pepper Hash

A preserve of chopped green and red peppers and onions cooked in sweetened vinegar and canned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pepper Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Remove seeds from the peppers and chop them along with the onions.

  2. Pour boiling water over the chopped mixture and let it stand for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the mixture very well in a colander.

Make and can the relish

  1. In a kettle, combine the vinegar, salt, and sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the drained peppers and onions, and let it come just to a boil.

  3. Can the mixture when it is cold.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 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

Peppers
Provide the bulk of the relish and its sweet, mild pepper flavor.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma that balances the sweetness of the relish.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its tangy bite.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the mixture very well. Excess water left on the chopped vegetables dilutes the hot vinegar brine, weakening its acidity and flavor and making the relish watery. Thorough draining keeps the brine strong and the texture firm.

Swap the onion

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

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

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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