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Pepper Vinegar Pickle

A pickle made by boiling red pepper pods in vinegar and adding cucumbers, tomatoes, or young cimblins soaked in salt brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Pepper Vinegar Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the red pepper pods in 2 quarts of vinegar using a porcelain kettle.

  2. Soak cucumbers, tomatoes, or young cimblins in salt brine for 2 days.

Pickle

  1. Place the soaked vegetables in a brass kettle lined with grape leaves.

  2. Add 1 pint of vinegar and 1 quart of water to the kettle and heat slowly.

  3. Once heated, drop the vegetables into the pepper vinegar.

  4. If needed, add more vinegar to cover the vegetables once cooled.

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. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their sharp flavour.
Red pepper pods
Infuse the vinegar with heat and pepper flavour that carries into the vegetables.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, or young cimblins
Are the vegetables being pickled, absorbing the seasoned vinegar as they steep.

The step that matters

Keep the vegetables fully covered with vinegar. Vegetables exposed above the liquid can spoil or mould, because the acid only preserves what it fully reaches. Adding more vinegar once cooled keeps every piece submerged.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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