Name: Pickled Sweet Peppers
Ingredients: red mangoes; green mangoes; yellow mangoes; salt; vinegar; sugar; spices

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Sweet Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Select red, green, and yellow mangoes.
Shred the mangoes lengthwise into thin strips.
Soak the shredded mangoes in salt water overnight.
Drain the mangoes well.
Prepare a sweet spiced vinegar by boiling vinegar, sugar, and spices.
Add the shredded mangoes to the boiling vinegar and simmer for 1 minute.
Seal the mixture in pint jars.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mango + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together256 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mango + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together561 recipes

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