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Mixed Pickles

A preserved vegetable mix of cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, horseradish, beans, tomatoes, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, green peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, horseradish, green beans, and green tomatoes in a large bowl.

  2. Soak the mixture in a strong brine for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture for 3 hours.

Pickle and cook

  1. Add black mustard seeds, white mustard seeds, and black ground pepper to the drained mixture.

  2. Cover the mixture with enough cider vinegar to submerge it.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, adding a little alum.

  4. Drain the mixture again.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Finish

  1. Mix in ground mustard.

  2. Cover the mixture with cider vinegar.

  3. Add turmeric for color if desired.

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. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 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

Black mustard seed
Provides sharp, pungent flavor that deepens as the pickle sits in vinegar.
White mustard seed
Adds a milder mustard bite and aroma to the pickled vegetables.
Cider vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tangy flavor.
Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, firm texture that the brining helps maintain.
Ground mustard
Contributes pungency and a sharper mustard flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil with alum. Alum helps firm the vegetables so they stay crisp rather than turning soft during heating. Boiling must be controlled so the vegetables are heated enough to be safe without becoming mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, horseradish, green beans, tomato. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

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