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Yellow Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture flavored with vinegar, brown sugar, turmeric, mace, cloves, garlic, horseradish, ginger, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 437 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Gather firm, early York cabbages, cut them in half, cover them thickly with salt, and let them stand one night.

  2. Scald the cabbages next day, and spread them on a cloth to dry, turning them frequently.

  3. When well dried, put them for one or two days in plain vinegar made very yellow with turmeric.

Make the pickle

  1. When the mixture is a good yellow, drain it, and put in spiced vinegar, cucumbers, one cup of pickles, and other vegetables, prepared as usual.

  2. To two gallons of vinegar, add three pounds of brown sugar, a handful of clove garlic, a handful of horseradish cut in thin slices, one cup of black pepper, one cup of white mustard seed, two ounces of turmeric in a thin bag, half ounce of mace, a small quantity of celery seed, half a pound of white ginger soaked well, sliced and dried, and one tablespoonful of the oil of cloves.

Age the pickle

  1. Keep the jar in the sun covered up very close, and stir the pickle frequently.

  2. This will be ready for use in four or five months.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

199Calories
1 gProtein
14 gFat
18 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Turmeric1 tsp ground (3g)9
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Macenot in our table0
Horseradishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

York cabbages (in the method)
Firm heads are salted and dried so they stay crisp rather than soft in the brine.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its deep yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth of flavour.
Vinegar
Acid preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp base.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warm heat that builds over the months of ageing.
White ginger
Adds a pungent, aromatic bite to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Drying the cabbage before the turmeric vinegar. If the cabbage is still wet when it goes into the yellow vinegar, it dilutes the liquid and the colour and acidity come out uneven. Drying it well lets the vinegar penetrate evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, pepper, turmeric, clove, garlic, horseradish):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, turmeric, clove, garlic, horseradish. 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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