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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, tomatoes, and peppers flavored with mustard and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine equal quantities of small cucumbers, button onions, cauliflower florets, sliced green tomatoes, and sliced green peppers.

  2. Soak the vegetables in brine and then drain.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of vinegar and 1 cup of brown sugar. Boil for 5 minutes and skim off any foam.

  2. Mix ½ cup of flour and ½ cup of ground mustard together. Slowly pour the hot vinegar mixture onto the flour and mustard, stirring until smooth.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles.

Rest

  1. Let the pickles sit for 3 weeks before using.

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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crunchy bulk of the pickle mix.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the hot vinegar mixture into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Ground mustard
Gives the sauce its sharp, pungent mustard flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot vinegar into the flour and mustard. Flour lumps form if the liquid is added too fast or without constant stirring. Pouring slowly while stirring lets the starch hydrate evenly, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, tomato, pepper, vinegar, 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.

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