Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Cherry Pepper
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peppers
Soak the peppers in brine for three weeks, changing the brine every two days.
Cut a slit in each pepper and remove the seeds.
Soak the peppers in cold water for one week, changing the water daily.
Green the peppers with alum and grape leaves in a brass skillet.
Soak the peppers in cold water for 24 hours, changing the water once.
Weigh the peppers.
Make the syrup and preserve
Combine 2 pounds of loaf sugar and 1 quart of water for every pound of peppers.
Boil the peppers in the syrup for 15 minutes.
Transfer the peppers to a jar.
Pour the syrup over the peppers.
Every other day, pour off the syrup.
Boil the syrup.
Pour the syrup back over the peppers until thickened.
Season with extract of lemon or mace.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Cherry + grapetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together696 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cherry + peppertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,336 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Cherry + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,301 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + grapetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,909 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
- Cherry peppers
- Provide the firm, tender fruit that holds its shape through the long soaking and syrup stages.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the peppers and, as the syrup thickens, preserves them and gives them body.
- Alum
- Helps the peppers keep a green colour during the greening step.
The step that matters
Pour the syrup back over the peppers until thickened. Boiling the syrup concentrates the sugar; if it is not reduced enough the peppers stay thin and may spoil, while over-boiling can make them hard and sticky.
Swap the grape
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry, pepper, sugar, lemon):
- Limefits better
- Orangefits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Grapethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, pepper, sugar, lemon. 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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