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Sauce

Pepper Sauce

A pickled cabbage and pepper sauce with mustard seed, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cabbage, green peppers, and onion finely.

Combine and store

  1. Combine with mustard seed and salt in a stone pot.

  2. Add enough vinegar to wet the mixture thoroughly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish, giving it a crisp, fresh texture.
Green peppers
Provide the main vegetable body and a fresh, sharp pepper flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite that flavors the sauce.
Vinegar
Moistens the mixture and adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang.

The step that matters

Add enough vinegar to wet the mixture thoroughly. Vinegar's acidity preserves the chopped vegetables and keeps them from spoiling, so every piece needs to be moistened. Dry patches can sour or spoil over time.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, 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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