Skip to main content
Main

Mustard Pickles

Pickled vegetables mixed with a mustard‑flavored dressing made from vinegar, sugar, flour, turmeric, and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Combine the green peppers, small onions, small cucumbers, pickled cauliflowers, and sliced cucumbers in a large container.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt with 1 quart of water to create a brine, then pour it over the vegetables until they are fully covered.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours, then drain off the brine.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, combine 1 gallon of vinegar, 6 tablespoons of mustard, 1½ cups of brown sugar, ½ cup of flour, ½ ounce of turmeric, and ½ ounce of curry powder.

  2. Boil the dressing for 5 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Pour the hot dressing over the pickles and ensure it has the consistency of thick sour cream.

  4. If the dressing is not thick enough, add more flour and boil again.

Store

  1. Store the pickles in crocks, covered tightly with thick paper.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it coats the vegetables rather than running off.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Contributes the sharp, pungent mustard flavour of the dressing.
Turmeric
Gives the dressing its bright yellow colour and earthy flavour.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma to the dressing.

The step that matters

Boiling the dressing until thickened. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated with liquid long enough to swell and gel. Stirring constantly prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot, and a dressing that is too thin will not cling to the pickles.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cucumber, cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, sugar, flour):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cucumber, cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, sugar, flour. 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.

More mustard pickles recipes

Mixed 7 See all 151 →

You might also like

Cauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipesCreamed CauliflowerCreamed Cauliflower17 recipesEscalloped CauliflowerEscalloped Cauliflower9 recipes