Skip to main content
Main

Green Pepper Mangoes

A pickled pepper dish with cabbage, green tomatoes, mustard seed, cloves, vinegar, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard 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 ↓

Green Pepper Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Select firm green peppers and a few red peppers for color.

  2. Remove the tops and seeds from the peppers.

  3. Soak the peppers overnight in salt water.

Fill and close

  1. Fill the peppers with chopped cabbage and green tomatoes, seasoning with salt, mustard seed, and ground cloves.

  2. Sew the tops back on the peppers.

Pickle

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the peppers, adding ½ cup of brown sugar.

  2. Pour the vinegar mixture over the peppers each morning for three days.

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

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm green peppers
Their firm flesh holds its shape through soaking and long pickling.
Red peppers
A few add colour to the finished pickle.
Chopped cabbage
Fills the peppers and adds crisp texture to the filling.
Chopped green tomatoes
Add tartness and body to the filling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the peppers and gives the pickling liquid its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Soak the peppers overnight in salt water. Salt draws water out of the peppers and firms their flesh, so they stay crisp rather than turning soft during pickling. Skipping or shortening the soak can leave them limp.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, mustard, clove, vinegar, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes