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Pickled Peppers

A pickled pepper dish with a mixture of chopped vegetables and spices, preserved in cold spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and okra share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 66 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Select large green peppers and cut a small slit on one side to avoid cutting off any part.

  2. Carefully remove all seeds from the peppers.

  3. Soak the peppers in salt water for six days, changing the brine several times.

Make the stuffing

  1. Chop the onions, red cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, beans, okra, carrots, and corn.

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients to your taste to prepare the stuffing.

  3. Sprinkle ground cinnamon, cloves, and allspice inside the peppers.

  4. Fill the peppers with the stuffing mixture and sew up the slit neatly.

Pickle and store

  1. Place the stuffed peppers in a stone jar and cover with cold spiced vinegar.

  2. Seal the jar tightly and set aside.

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. Beans + okratop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers
Their hollowed shells hold the stuffing and give the pickle its main body and crisp bite.
Cold spiced vinegar
Its acidity preserves the peppers and carries the flavour of the spices into the dish.
Salt
Salt water soaking draws out moisture and firms the peppers before stuffing.
Cabbage
Chopped red cabbage adds crunch and body to the stuffing.
Cinnamon
Ground cinnamon adds warm aroma to the stuffing inside the peppers.

The step that matters

Soaking the peppers in salt water. Six days of soaking, with the brine changed several times, draws out bitterness and moisture and firms the flesh. Skipping changes or shortening the soak leaves the peppers harsh or soft.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, beans, okra):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, beans, okra. 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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