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Stuffing for Peppers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffing for Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop and scald the cabbage, then press out all the water.

  2. Mix in the white mustard seed, celery seed, horseradish, cloves, allspice, mace, ginger, brown sugar, sweet oil, and chopped garlic.

  3. Remove the peppers from brine and soak them in clear water for one day.

  4. Soak the peppers in vinegar for several days before stuffing.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, celery, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, celery, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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