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French Pickle

A pickled mixture of cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, mustard seed, celery seed, ginger, horseradish, and spices, preserved in vinegar and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the vegetables: cut the green tomatoes, white cabbage, green peppers, and small white onions, removing cores and seeds.

  2. Add the white mustard seed, celery seed, green ginger, red pepper pods, cayenne pepper, horseradish, and salt to the vegetables.

  3. Chop all the ingredients very fine.

Cook and preserve

  1. Boil the mixture for four hours, covering well with cider vinegar and adding more as it boils away.

  2. When the mixture cools, add a small bottle of olive oil.

  3. Place the mixture in jars and close them very tightly until fit for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

63Calories
3 gProtein
1 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
White Cabbage1 cup shredded (89g)22
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Celery Seed1 stalk (40g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
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. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Celery + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 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

Green tomatoes
Provide bulk and tartness that the long boil softens into the pickle.
White cabbage
Adds crisp body and bulk that softens during the long simmer.
Red pepper pods
Add heat and pungency to the pickle.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavour.
Olive oil (in the method)
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling with vinegar for four hours. The vegetables must stay covered in vinegar and the pot topped up as it reduces. If the mixture dries out or boils too hard, it can scorch or fail to become acidic enough to preserve safely.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, tomato, pepper, horseradish, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, tomato, pepper, horseradish, vinegar. 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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