Name: Pepper Sauce
Ingredients: 3 dozen peppers; 2 heads of cabbage; 1 root of horseradish; 2 tablespoons mustard seeds; 1 teaspoon cloves; 2 tablespoons sugar; 2 quarts vinegar

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the peppers, cabbage, and horseradish.

Make the sauce

Combine all ingredients in a pot.
Boil in 2 quarts of vinegar.
Strain the mixture.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together481 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peppers: Provide the main heat and pepper flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that makes the sauce tangy and helps preserve it.
Cabbage: Adds bulk and a soft texture as it cooks down.
Horseradish: Contributes sharp pungency that mellows with cooking.
Mustard seeds: Add a pungent, slightly bitter flavor.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

Swap the clove

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

Dillfits better
Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Clovethe original

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