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Mixed Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix of cucumbers, onions, beans, nasturtium, tomatoes, and cauliflower in vinegar and spices.

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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak cucumbers, onions, beans, nasturtium, and tomatoes in salt water for 24 hours.

  2. Divide cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and simmer in a mixture of water, vinegar, and a little salt until tender.

  3. Drain cauliflower and combine with the other vegetables in a stone jar.

Pickle and seal

  1. In a pot, scald cider vinegar, sugar, mixed spices, whole pepper, and mustard seed together.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the vegetables, cover tightly, or seal in cans.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 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

Cucumbers
Form the main crunchy body of the pickle after soaking in salt water.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor to the brine as it steeps into the vegetables.

The step that matters

Soaking the vegetables in salt water for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming them and reducing excess moisture so they stay crisp rather than soft in the vinegar brine.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, tomato, cauliflower, cider, vinegar, sugar. 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 mixed pickles recipes

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