Skip to main content
Sauce

Pepper Sauce

A fermented pepper and cabbage sauce flavored with horseradish, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, mace, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the green peppers and cabbage.

  2. Add the grated horseradish, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, mace, coarse sea salt, and sugar.

Make and add the vinegar

  1. In a pot, boil the spices and sugar in the vinegar.

  2. While hot, pour the vinegar mixture over the peppers and cabbage.

Store

  1. Once cooled, cover the jars and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Green peppers
Provide the main bulk and fresh, mild pepper flavour of the relish.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk that holds up to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the sauce its sharp tang.
Horseradish
Supplies the pungent heat that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar mixture while hot. Pouring the boiling vinegar over the vegetables softens them and helps the liquid penetrate, so the sauce is evenly flavoured and preserved. Letting it cool first would leave the vegetables firmer and less infused.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, horseradish, mustard, allspice, clove, 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

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesHorseradish Cream SauceHorseradish Cream Sauce6 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes