Skip to main content
Main

Mixed Pickle

A pickled mixture of onions, green peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the onions, green peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage finely and let them stand for 1 hour.

  2. Place the chopped vegetables in a bag and hang it overnight to drain.

  3. The next morning, cover the vegetables with cold vinegar and let them sit for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the vegetables again overnight.

Add the hot vinegar

  1. Scald enough strong cider vinegar with spices in a muslin bag and sweeten to taste.

  2. Before adding the hot vinegar, mix in black and white mustard seed and celery seed to your preference.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the vegetables and cover the jar to keep the steam in.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Onions
Adds bulk and savory sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Green peppers
Contributes crisp texture and fresh, grassy flavor to the pickle.
Cucumbers
Provides the main crisp body that stays firm through the pickling process.
Cabbage
Adds crunchy texture and absorbs the vinegar brine well.
Strong cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Draining the chopped vegetables. Salting-free draining removes excess water so the brine is not diluted and the vegetables stay crisp rather than soggy. Leftover moisture weakens the vinegar's effect and dulls the final texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cucumber, cabbage, vinegar, cider, sugar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cucumber, cabbage, vinegar, cider, sugar, 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes