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Indian Pickle

A preserved mixture of ginger, garlic, cabbages, cauliflower, celery, beans, horseradish, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 139 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger and garlic

  1. Scrape and wash the ginger.

  2. Cut the ginger into thin slices.

  3. Soak the ginger in saltwater overnight.

  4. Lay the ginger on a dish.

  5. Sprinkle salt over the ginger.

  6. Let the ginger stand until ready.

  7. Cut the garlic into bits.

  8. Soak the garlic in salt for three days.

  9. Wash the garlic.

  10. Drain the garlic.

  11. Dry the garlic on a sieve in the sun or by the fire.

Prepare the cabbages and vegetables

  1. Boil the summer cabbages in saltwater for 15 minutes.

  2. Cut the cabbages into quarters.

  3. Drain the cabbages.

  4. Sprinkle the cabbages with finely-minced beef suet.

  5. Let the cabbages sit for 12 hours.

  6. Pull the cabbages into small bits.

  7. Dry the cabbages under glass in the sun, turning them constantly for three days. If the cabbages are not completely dry, place them by the fire until they are parchment-like.

  8. Boil cauliflower, celery, French beans, and sliced horseradish in saltwater.

  9. Pull the cauliflower into bits.

  10. Cut the celery into 1-inch pieces.

  11. Dry the vegetables in the sun or by the fire.

Make the spiced vinegar and pack the jar

  1. Finely bruise the mustard seed and turmeric.

  2. Mix the bruised mustard seed and turmeric with long pepper and allspice in a quart of strong vinegar.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Add three quarts of common vinegar to the boiling mixture.

  5. Pour the boiling hot vinegar over the dried vegetables in a jar.

  6. If the vinegar reduces significantly in three weeks, top it up with more vinegar.

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. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

White ginger
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the pickle.
Garlic
Adds pungency and aroma that mellow during drying and soaking.
Summer cabbages
Form the bulk of the pickle, and drying concentrates their texture.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat that carries through the vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy aroma.
Strong vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the cabbages until parchment-like. Vegetables that retain moisture dilute the vinegar and can spoil in the jar. Thorough drying in sun or by the fire removes water so the pickle keeps and absorbs the spiced vinegar well.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, cabbage, beef, cauliflower, celery, beans, horseradish):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, cabbage, beef, cauliflower, celery, beans, horseradish. 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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