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Pepper Hash

A pickled relish of green, yellow, and red mango peppers with cabbage and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pepper Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the peppers, cabbage, and onions.

  2. Mix with ½ cup coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture.

Dress and can

  1. Prepare the dressing by combining 2 pints of granulated sugar, 4 tablespoons of white mustard seed, 4 tablespoons of celery seed, and ½ gallon of vinegar.

  2. Cover the drained vegetables with the dressing and can them cold.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Peppers
Provide the main bulk and mild, sweet-bitter flavour of the relish.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk that holds its texture after pickling.
Onions
Contribute sharp aromatic flavour that mellows during the brine and pickling.
Granulated sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the hash its tang.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, warm flavour to the dressing.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the vegetables overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis. Draining well removes that liquid so the dressing is not diluted and the hash stays crisp rather than watery.

Swap the mango

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, onion, sugar, mustard, celery, 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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