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Yellow Pickle

A pickled cabbage dish flavored with mustard, celery, coriander, pepper, ginger, turmeric, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric 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 ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine the black mustard seed, white mustard seed, celery seed, coriander, white pepper, green ginger, turmeric, and brown sugar in a large container.

  2. Add 1½ gallons of cider vinegar.

  3. Set the mixture in the sun.

Brine the cabbage

  1. Quarter the cabbages and place them in a tub.

  2. Make a strong brine and boil it.

  3. Pour the hot brine over the cabbages and let them stand for 24 hours.

  4. Repeat the process.

Sun-cure and pickle

  1. Spread the cabbages on a board and salt them slightly.

  2. Let them sit in the hot sun for four days, avoiding dew.

  3. Transfer the cabbages to a jar.

  4. Pour the prepared vinegar over them while boiling hot.

  5. Taste the pickles to determine when they are ready.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Black mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent bite that defines the pickle's flavour.
White mustard seed
Adds further pungency and a milder, rounder heat to the spice blend.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the cabbage and sharpens its flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.

The step that matters

Pouring the prepared vinegar boiling hot. Hot vinegar helps the cabbage soften and take up the spice flavours, and its acidity must be strong enough to preserve the pickles. Letting it cool before pouring would weaken both effects.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, celery, coriander, ginger, turmeric, sugar, cider):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, celery, coriander, ginger, turmeric, sugar, cider. 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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