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Stuffed Bell Pepper Pickles

A pickled dish of bell peppers stuffed with a seasoned cabbage and onion mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stuffed Bell Pepper Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the caps of the peppers and remove all the seeds.

  2. Soak the peppers in a strong brine for 12 hours.

  3. Sprinkle the chopped cabbage and sliced onions with salt and let stand overnight.

  4. In the morning, press out all the water from the cabbage and onions.

Make the filling

  1. Add ground mustard, turmeric, celery seeds, ground cloves, ground mace, ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon, ground red pepper, white mustard seeds, and horseradish to the mixture.

  2. Put the mixture in a kettle and cover with vinegar, then cook until well done.

  3. When almost cold, stir in olive oil and fill the peppers with the mixture.

Pickle

  1. Place the filled peppers in a stone jar, cover with cold vinegar, and tie up until they season.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Serve as the edible vessel that holds the filling while it pickles.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives it a crisp, crunchy texture.
Red onions
Adds sharpness and pungency to the filling, mellowed by salting and pressing.
White mustard seeds
Contribute a sharp, pungent bite to the pickled mixture.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, coating the filling and softening its sharpness.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water from the cabbage and onions. Salted vegetables release a lot of water; if it is not pressed out well, the filling stays wet and dilutes the vinegar, leaving the pickle soft and weaker in flavour.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, onion, mustard, turmeric, celery, clove. 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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