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Dessert

Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, cauliflower, and onions flavored with mustard, turmeric, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix cucumbers, cauliflower, and onions in layers in a jar, sprinkling salt between layers.

  2. Cover with boiling water and let stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain in a colander and wipe dry.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, turmeric, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne with a little cold vinegar until smooth.

  2. Stir this mixture into the cider vinegar and heat until boiling.

Pickle and jar

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles and set aside.

  2. Stir the pickles 2 or 3 times over the next day or two, then transfer to quart jars.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, softening slightly while absorbing the brine.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp texture that holds up through the long soak.
Small onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma that mellow during pickling.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Mustard
Adds pungency and helps thicken and emulsify the spiced pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their bright yellow colour and earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the vegetables before adding the hot liquid. Excess water left on the vegetables dilutes the vinegar brine, weakening its acidity and preservative effect, and the spice mixture will not cling well to wet surfaces.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cauliflower, cider, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, cider, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, ginger. 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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