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Pickled Green Peppers

A preserved dish of green bell peppers stuffed with seasoned cabbage and mustard, preserved in brine and spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Green Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Cut a slit in the side of each pepper.

  2. Remove the seeds, keeping them whole.

  3. Make a strong brine.

  4. Pour the brine over the peppers.

  5. Let the peppers stand for 24 hours.

  6. Remove the peppers from the brine.

  7. Soak the peppers in water for 1 day and 1 night.

  8. Drain the water.

  9. Scald some vinegar with a small piece of alum.

  10. Pour the scalded vinegar over the peppers.

  11. Let the peppers stand for 3 days.

Stuff and pickle

  1. Chop the cabbage finely.

  2. Season the cabbage with a little salt.

  3. Mix in the mustard seed.

  4. Stuff the peppers tightly with the cabbage mixture.

  5. Stitch the peppers up.

  6. Place the stuffed peppers in a stone jar.

  7. Pour hot spiced vinegar over them.

  8. Cover tightly.

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. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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

Green bell peppers
Form the pickle's body, and their firm flesh holds the stuffing while they soften in brine and vinegar.
White cabbage
Provides the crisp, chopped filling that fills the peppers and stays crunchy in the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the cabbage filling as it pickles.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the peppers and gives the pickle its sour bite.

The step that matters

Pour the brine over the peppers. Salt draws water out of the peppers and firms them, so the brine must be strong enough to keep them crisp rather than limp during the standing period.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, 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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