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Dessert

Sweet Peppers

Sweet peppers stuffed with finely chopped cabbage, then pickled in a vinegar and sugar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sweet Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean out the sweet peppers.

  2. Chop the cabbage finely.

  3. Stuff the peppers with the chopped cabbage and sew them up.

  4. Soak the stuffed peppers in salt water for 24 hours.

  5. Remove the peppers from the salt water.

Pickle

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of vinegar with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Place the peppers in the vinegar mixture and heat until scalding.

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).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cabbage + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet peppers
Hold the filling and soften as they soak and heat in the brine.
Cabbage
Provides the filling, adding bulk and a crisp texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat the peppers until scalding. Heat softens the pepper walls so they become tender enough to eat. Overheating breaks them down further, leaving them limp and mushy, so watch them closely and stop once they are scalded.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, sugar. 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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