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Beet Relish

A pickled relish made from chopped cabbage, diced cooked beets, horseradish, onions, sugar, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beet Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped cabbage, diced beets, chopped horseradish, and chopped onions.

  2. Add the sugar, salt, black pepper, and red pepper to the mixture and stir well.

Pour and jar

  1. Pour cold vinegar over the mixture until it is well covered.

  2. Pack the relish into jars and seal for canning.

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. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 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

Beets
Provide the main colour and earthy body of the relish.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up after pickling in vinegar.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish with sweetness.
Vinegar
Acidifies the relish, preserving it and giving it a sharp tang.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat that mellows during standing.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar until the mixture is well covered. The vinegar's acidity is what preserves the relish, so the vegetables must be fully submerged. Any exposed pieces can spoil, and the acid level must be enough for safe canning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, horseradish, sugar, 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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