Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Peppers

Pickled peppers stuffed with cabbage, tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables, then preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Make a small incision in the side of each pepper and remove all the seeds carefully.

  2. Soak the peppers in brine for two days, changing the water twice.

Stuff and pickle

  1. Stuff the peppers with a mixture of chopped cabbage, tomatoes, nasturtiums, onions, red cabbage, grapes, and cucumbers, seasoned with mustard seed and a little mace. Sew up the incision.

  2. Place the stuffed peppers in a jar. Cover with cold-spiced vinegar.

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

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

Large green sweet peppers
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the stuffing.
Brine
Soaks the peppers over two days, softening them and drawing out flavour before pickling.
Cold-spiced vinegar
Acidity that preserves the peppers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Red cabbage
Adds crunch and colour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Soaking the peppers in brine. Two days of soaking, with the water changed twice, is what removes harshness and seasons the peppers. Skipping the changes leaves the brine salty and the peppers less tender, so the water should be replaced as directed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, cabbage, tomato, mustard, onion, grape):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, cabbage, tomato, mustard, onion, grape. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes