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Mustard Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, string beans, onions, and green peppers flavored with mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflowers, string beans, onions, and green peppers.

Make the pickle

  1. In a large pot, combine all chopped vegetables with cloves, cinnamon, whole peppercorns, ground black pepper, white mustard seed, ground mustard, sugar, turmeric, and vinegar. Stir well and let the mixture sit for a few hours or overnight.

Jar and seal

  1. Pack the mixture into sterilized jars and seal tightly.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar brine.
White mustard seed
Supplies the sharp, pungent mustard flavour that defines the pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Cauliflowers
Add firm, crisp texture that holds up through the long brining.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture sit. Resting the chopped vegetables in the vinegar and sugar draws out moisture and lets the brine penetrate, so the spices and acid season the vegetables evenly before jarring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, cauliflower, beans, pepper, clove, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, cauliflower, beans, pepper, clove, cinnamon. 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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