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Peppers for Relishes

A relish of fresh, pickled, or broiled bell peppers seasoned with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper, served with radishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and radish work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 508 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Peppers for Relishes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Trim the stems off the large bell peppers.

  2. Cut the peppers into four or six pieces.

  3. Remove the seeds.

Make the relish

  1. For broiled peppers, broil them first.

  2. Peel the broiled peppers.

  3. Slice the broiled peppers.

  4. Season the broiled peppers with oil, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  5. If using pickled peppers, dry them with a napkin.

  6. Slice the pickled peppers.

  7. Add a little oil, vinegar, and coarse sea salt to the pickled peppers.

Serve

  1. Serve on a relish dish garnished with radishes.

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. Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + radishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large bell peppers
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the relish.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavor through the peppers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet pepper flavor.

The step that matters

Broil the peppers until the skins blister. Blistering loosens the skin so it peels off cleanly, and the charred surface adds smoky flavor. Undercooked peppers keep tough, bitter skin that resists peeling.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits about as well
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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