Name: Pepper Pickle
Ingredients: 25 green peppers; more than 10 cups chopped cabbage; ½ cup coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon mustard seed; 1 tablespoon ground cloves; 1 tablespoon allspice; vinegar to cover

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pepper Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the seeds from the peppers and chop them finely.
Chop the cabbage and add it to the peppers.
Mix in the salt, mustard seed, ground cloves, and allspice.

Pickle and store

Cover the mixture with cold vinegar and mix thoroughly.
Transfer to closely covered 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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers: Provide the main vegetable bulk and fresh, slightly bitter flavor of the pickle.
Cabbage: Adds crunch and bulk, holding texture through the pickling process.
Coarse sea salt: Draws water out of the vegetables, softening them and seasoning the pickle.
Vinegar: Acidifies the mixture, preserving it and giving it its sharp tang.

Swap the cabbage

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

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Radishfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, clove, allspice, vinegar. 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.