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Pickled Peppers

Pickled peppers stuffed with cabbage, tomatoes, or other vegetables, preserved in brine and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a small incision in the side of each pepper and remove all the seeds carefully.

  2. Soak the peppers in brine for two days, changing the water twice.

Stuff and pickle

  1. Stuff the peppers with a mixture of chopped cabbage or tomatoes seasoned with spices, or a mixture of nasturtiums, chopped onions, red cabbage, grapes, and cucumbers seasoned with mustard seed and a little mace.

  2. Sew up the incision, place the stuffed peppers in a jar, and cover with cold-spiced vinegar.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large green sweet peppers
Serve as the hollow vessel that holds the stuffing and pickling liquid.
Cold-spiced vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled peppers.
Brine
Draws out moisture and mellows the peppers before stuffing.

The step that matters

Soaking the peppers in brine for two days. Brine softens the peppers and draws out some water, so they take up the stuffing and vinegar better. Changing the water twice keeps the salt level from building up and stops the soak from going sour or too salty, which would spoil the flavour of the finished pickle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, cabbage, onion, grape, cucumber, mustard):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, cabbage, onion, grape, cucumber, mustard. 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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