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Pepper Hash

A preserved relish of mangoes, onions, cabbage, peppers, sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Pepper Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grind the mangoes, onions, cabbage, and hot peppers.

  2. Salt the mixture and let it sit overnight.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and store

  1. Add sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, and vinegar.

  2. Bottle the mixture and store it cold.

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Mangoes
Provide the main fruit body and sweet, fruity flavor of the relish.
Onions
Add pungent savory flavor that mellows during the long resting and cooking process.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp, fibrous texture to the finished hash.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mixture and gives it its tang.

The step that matters

Salt the mixture and let it sit overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables and fruit through osmosis, softening them and concentrating flavor. Skipping the rest leaves the texture watery and the flavors less developed.

Swap the mango

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Mangothe original

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