Skip to main content
Side

Health Piccalilli

A pickled relish of tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, celery, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Health Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and scald

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, and celery in a bowl.

  2. Mix in coarse sea salt and let stand for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture thoroughly and scald it in 2 quarts of vinegar.

Pack and cover

  1. Drain again and pack the mixture into jars.

  2. Once cold, pour over the remaining 2 quarts of vinegar mixed with horseradish, mace, cinnamon, allspice, mustard, cayenne, celery seed, and mustard seed.

  3. Cover with a plate to keep the mixture submerged in vinegar, then cover the top with a thick cloth.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Green tomatoes
Makes up the bulk of the pickle; its firm flesh holds its shape in the vinegar.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and crunch that softens only partly after scalding.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, leaving them firmer and less watery.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the mixture and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat to the pickle.
Onions
Add sweetness and a sharp bite to the mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the vegetables submerged in vinegar. Pieces left above the liquid are exposed to air, which encourages spoilage and mould. The plate holds everything under the vinegar, and the cloth covers the top of the jar to protect it while it keeps.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, cucumber, onion, celery, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

Onion PuddingOnion Pudding9 recipesEggplant CakesEggplant Cakes34 recipesEscalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)Escalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)25 recipesParsnip CroquettesParsnip Croquettes12 recipes