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Mixed Pickles

An assortment of cucumbers, beans, onions, tomatoes, and cauliflower pickled in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces.

  2. Soak each vegetable overnight in separate pans of salt water.

  3. In the morning, boil 2 quarts of vinegar and 1 quart of water.

  4. Remove the vegetables from the salt water.

Cook and pickle

  1. Cook each vegetable in the boiling vinegar and water until it can be pricked with a silver fork.

  2. Place the cooked vegetables in a stone jar.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar over the vegetables in the jar.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 2 days.

  5. Drain the vegetables.

Bottle and finish

  1. Transfer the drained vegetables to bottles.

  2. Add celery seed, whole black pepper, and whole red peppers to taste.

  3. Pour fresh boiling white vinegar, sweetened with 3 pounds of sugar, over the contents in the bottles.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Stay firm and crisp while absorbing the vinegar brine as they pickle.
Cauliflower
Holds its shape and texture through cooking and soaking in the vinegar brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness in the final bottled pickle.
Green or wax beans
Keep a firm, tender bite after cooking and soaking in the brine.

The step that matters

Cooking each vegetable until just pricked by a fork. Vegetables cooked too long turn soft and mushy, while undercooked ones stay raw and resist absorbing the vinegar. Testing with a fork helps each piece reach a tender but firm texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, beans, tomato, cauliflower, vinegar, sugar, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, tomato, cauliflower, vinegar, sugar, celery. 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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