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Pepper Sauce

A fermented pepper and cabbage sauce with horseradish, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, mace, salt, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the green peppers and cabbage in a large bowl.

  2. Add the grated horseradish, mustard seed, allspice, cloves, mace, coarse sea salt, and sugar.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the spices and sugar in the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. While the vinegar mixture is hot, pour it over the peppers and cabbage.

Store

  1. Once cooled, cover the jars and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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 peppers
Provide the bulk of the sauce and its fresh, vegetal flavor.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body that holds up to the hot vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang and preserves it.
Horseradish
Contributes pungent heat that mellows as the sauce stands.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the vegetables while it is still hot. Hot vinegar softens the cabbage and peppers and draws flavor from the spices into them, so pouring it while hot helps the sauce soak through evenly. Letting it cool first would leave the vegetables firmer and less infused.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, horseradish, mustard, allspice, clove, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, horseradish, mustard, allspice, clove, 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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