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Pickled Chop

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and peppers, preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper 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 ↓

Pickled Chop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and cabbage finely.

  2. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the chopped vegetables.

  3. Place the mixture in a crock.

Make the pickling vinegar

  1. In a pot, boil the vinegar with spices and the chopped red pepper.

  2. Add finely chopped black pepper to the vinegar mixture.

  3. Boil the vinegar mixture for two mornings.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar over the chopped vegetables.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and firm texture once salted and chopped.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the pickled mixture.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Red pepper
Adds sweetness, color and mild flavor to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting the chopped vegetables. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables through osmosis, which firms their texture and helps them stay crisp in the vinegar. Using too little leaves the pickle soft and watery.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cabbage, vinegar, pepper. 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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