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Pickled Cauliflower

Pickled cauliflower preserved in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Break cauliflower into flowerlets.

  2. Boil in salted water for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain and dip in cold water.

  4. Pack in jars.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Scald vinegar with cloves, pepper, allspice, and white mustard in a spice bag.

  2. Remove spice bag after scalding.

  3. Stir 2 teaspoons of French mustard and ½ cup of sugar into each quart of vinegar.

Fill and seal

  1. Pour vinegar over cauliflower to fill jars and seal immediately.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm body of the pickle that holds its texture in the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acid that preserves the cauliflower and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seeds
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter spice note to the pickling liquid.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and mustard flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Seal immediately after filling the jars. Hot vinegar poured over the cauliflower and sealed while still hot creates a vacuum as it cools, which helps keep air out and the pickle safe to store.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, allspice, mustard, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, allspice, mustard, 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.

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