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Pepper Pickle

A pickled green pepper dish preserved in vinegar with mustard seed, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Pepper Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the seeds from the peppers and chop the fruit.

  2. Chop the cabbage.

  3. Use a napkin or cotton gloves to prepare the peppers to avoid burning your hands.

Pack and seal

  1. Add all the other ingredients and cover with cold vinegar.

  2. Put in jars, ensuring the vinegar covers the pickles.

  3. Cork 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 + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 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

Green peppers
Form the bulk of the pickle and supply its sharp, fresh flavour.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk, soaking up the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter aroma and flavour.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickle.

The step that matters

Handling the peppers. Hot pepper oils can irritate and burn the skin, so wearing a napkin or cotton gloves protects your hands while you seed and chop the peppers.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, mustard, allspice. 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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