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Garlic Pickle

A pickle made by steeping ginger, garlic, long pepper, mustard seed, and turmeric in vinegar, then aging for 1‑2 years.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Garlic Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger

  1. Steep ginger in strong salt water for 5 days.

  2. Cut ginger into slices.

  3. Dry ginger slices in the sun.

Prepare the garlic

  1. Peel garlic.

  2. Salt peeled garlic well.

  3. Let salted garlic stand for 3 days.

  4. Wipe garlic.

  5. Dry garlic in the sun.

Combine and age

  1. Combine ginger, garlic, long pepper, mustard seed, and turmeric in a large stone jar.

  2. Shake the jar well.

  3. Add any seasonal vegetables you wish to pickle.

  4. Salt and dry the vegetables first.

  5. Let the pickle sit for 1‑2 years before using.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + turmerictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Provides the main pungent flavour and bulk of the pickle.
Ginger
Adds a warm, sharp aroma that balances the strong garlic.
White wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite and aroma to the pickle.
Turmeric
Contributes earthy aroma and a golden colour.

The step that matters

Salting and drying the garlic. Salt draws moisture out of the garlic, and drying removes surface water. Less water means the garlic is less likely to spoil or dilute the vinegar during long ageing.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, garlic, pepper, mustard, turmeric):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, garlic, pepper, mustard, turmeric. 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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