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Pepper Pickle

A pickled green pepper recipe using vinegar, mustard seed, cloves, allspice, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  1. Remove the seeds from the peppers and chop the fruit.

  2. Chop the cabbage.

  3. Use a napkin or cotton gloves to prepare the peppers to avoid burning your hands.

Pickle and seal

  1. Add all the other ingredients and cover with cold vinegar.

  2. Put in jars, ensuring the vinegar covers the pickles.

  3. Cork tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and supply the main texture and flavour.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, soaking up the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and seasons the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Handling the peppers. Hot pepper oils can irritate and burn skin, and they linger on hands. Wearing a napkin or cotton gloves protects your hands while you seed and chop.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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