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Piccalilli

Piccalilli is a pickled relish made from green tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, vinegar, salt, sugar, 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 mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the vegetables.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables with the salt.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 12 hours.

  4. Drain the mixture thoroughly.

Cook and jar

  1. Heat the vinegar, sugar, and spices in a pot.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables to the pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Put the mixture into clean jars.

  5. Seal the jars 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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it its main texture and body.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture that holds up after salting and simmering in vinegar.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the vinegar brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Drain the salted mixture thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables. Leftover liquid dilutes the vinegar brine and can make the pickle watery and less safely preserved, so draining well keeps the texture firm and the brine strong.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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