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Dessert

Sweet Relish

A sweet relish made from cucumber pickles, green tomatoes, onions, celery, mangoes, and red pepper simmered in vinegar, sugar, mustard, turmeric, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumber pickles, green tomatoes, onions, celery, mangoes, and red pepper finely.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand in weak vinegar for three days.

  3. Drain well.

Make the dressing and can

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, ground mustard, turmeric powder, and flour.

  2. Cook the mixture and pour it over the chopped vegetables.

  3. Bring to a boil and then can the relish.

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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

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

  5. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumber pickles
Provide the main crisp, tangy body of the relish.
Green tomatoes
Add bulk and a firm texture that holds up during cooking.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the relish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the relish becomes saucy rather than watery.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture before pouring it over the vegetables. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot vinegar mixture to thicken smoothly and lose its raw starchy taste. Undercooked flour leaves the sauce cloudy and pasty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, celery, mango, 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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