Skip to main content
Main

Indian Relish

A pickled vegetable relish made with cabbage, onions, bell peppers, red peppers, green tomatoes, salt, vinegar, mustard seed, celery seed, sugar, and English mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Indian Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cabbage, onions, bell peppers, red peppers, and green tomatoes finely.

  2. Sprinkle the chopped vegetables with salt.

  3. Let the salted vegetables stand overnight.

  4. Drain the vegetables well.

Cook

  1. Partially cover the drained vegetables with vinegar.

  2. Add the mustard seed, celery seed, and sugar to the mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture until done.

  4. Stir in the English mustard.

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

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and tart flavor that forms the relish base.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating their flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the relish its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent heat and a crunchy texture when cooked in the relish.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as the vegetables cook down.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables well. Salting draws out a lot of water; any left behind dilutes the vinegar and leaves the relish watery and less crisp.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes