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Pepper Mangoes

A pickled bell pepper dish with cabbage, mustard seed, horseradish, celery seed, allspice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pepper Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the bell peppers by removing the seeds if desired after scalding.

  2. Fill the peppers with chopped cabbage, mustard seed, horseradish, celery seed, and allspice.

  3. Tie the peppers with wide strips of muslin.

Pickle

  1. Drop them in cold vinegar and place cross sticks over the top to keep them submerged.

  2. Store them in the vinegar to keep well.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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 vessel that holds the filling and absorbs the vinegar flavor.
Cabbage
Provides the crisp, chopped filling that softens slightly during pickling.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that deepens as the peppers pickle.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent heat that mellows during storage in the vinegar.
Cold vinegar
Acts as the acidic brine that preserves the peppers and gives them their tang.

The step that matters

Keep the peppers fully submerged in the vinegar. Peppers left above the liquid can spoil or mold because air exposure allows microbial growth. Cross sticks hold them under the brine so the acidic vinegar protects the whole batch during storage.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, mustard, horseradish, celery, 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.

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