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To Pickle Green or Red Capsicums

A method for pickling green or red capsicums in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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 ↓

To Pickle Green or Red Capsicums

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the capsicums in a jar.

  2. Boil ½ cup of coarse sea salt in 1 quart of vinegar and pour it hot over the peppers.

  3. When cold, cover the jar with a plate and tie it with bladder or leather.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capsicum + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Capsicums
The main vegetable, which softens and takes on the flavour of the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the peppers and gives them a sharp, tangy taste.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot brine over the peppers. Hot liquid helps the salt dissolve fully and begins softening the peppers so the brine can penetrate evenly. Letting it cool completely before covering keeps the jar from trapping heat and moisture.

Swap the capsicum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, shallot, horseradish, white wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Capsicumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, shallot, horseradish, white wine. 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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