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Mustard Pickles

Pickled vegetables seasoned with mustard, turmeric, sugar, and flour, simmered in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, and peppers.

  2. Boil all the sliced vegetables in water and vinegar until tender, adding the powdered alum.

  3. Once cooked, remove from heat and let cool on the back of the stove.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground mustard, turmeric, sugar, and flour.

  2. Gradually add some of the cooling vinegar to form a smooth paste.

  3. Stir the paste into the cooked vegetables and heat the mixture to a boiling point.

Pack

  1. Pack the mixture into glass jars or an earthen jar with a tight cover.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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 soften into tender pieces when boiled in vinegar.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a firm, crisp-tender texture that holds up during boiling.
Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines mustard pickles.
Flour
Thickens the mustard paste so the pickling liquid becomes smooth and coats the vegetables.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the mustard paste to the vegetables. Flour and ground mustard clump easily if added dry or without enough cooled vinegar. Thinning them into a smooth paste first lets the flour thicken the liquid evenly once heated to a boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, pepper, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, pepper, 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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