Name: Pepper Mangoes
Ingredients: largest green peppers; coarse sea salt; white cabbage; white mustard seed; celery seed; cider vinegar; alum; green grape leaves

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Pepper Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make an incision in the side of each pepper and remove the seeds.
Soak the peppers in very salty water for 24 hours.
Chop the white cabbage and season with white mustard seed, celery seed, and salt.
Place the seasoned cabbage in a jar and cover it with cider vinegar.
Add a small piece of alum to the vinegar and cover the jar with green grape leaves.
Do not boil the vinegar; the pickles will be ready in one to two months.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, mustard, celery, cider, vinegar):

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Applefits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, mustard, celery, cider, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.