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Preserved Stuffed Pickled Bell Peppers

A preserved dish of bell peppers stuffed with shredded cabbage and pickled in cold boiled vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Preserved Stuffed Pickled Bell Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Cut the stems from the bell peppers and slice the tops without detaching them.

  2. Scoop out the seeds and soak the peppers in brine, then drain them.

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Cut the white part of the cabbage into small shreds and parboil for 5 minutes.

  2. Immerse the cabbage in cold water and drain it well, then season with a little salt.

Fill and pickle

  1. Stuff the peppers with the cabbage and cover with the undetached tops.

  2. Arrange the stuffed peppers in jars and pour cold boiled vinegar over them to cover.

  3. Seal the jars tightly and let them sit for 2 months before using.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Their firm flesh holds the filling and becomes tender-crisp as it pickles.
Cabbage
Provides the bulk of the filling and a crisp texture that softens slightly in the brine.
Cold boiled vinegar
Acidity preserves the peppers and gives the pickled sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Parboil the cabbage for 5 minutes. Brief parboiling softens the cabbage enough to stuff easily while keeping some crispness. Cooking too long makes it mushy, and the vinegar then cannot give it a firm pickled texture.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Cabbagethe original
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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