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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, turmeric, and alum, sweetened with sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Make a brine with 4 quarts of water and 1 pint of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the brine over the vegetables and let soak for 24 hours.

Scald and drain

  1. Heat the brine just enough to scald it.

  2. Drain the vegetables in a colander.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, 6 tablespoons of mustard, 1 tablespoon of turmeric, and 1 teaspoon of powdered alum with enough cold vinegar to make a smooth paste.

  2. Add 1 cup of sugar and enough vinegar to reach a total of 2 quarts.

  3. Boil the mixture until it thickens and is smooth, stirring constantly.

Combine and cook

  1. Add the drained vegetables and cook until heated through.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 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

All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and clings to the vegetables.
Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow color.
Powdered alum
Helps the vegetables stay firm and crisp after cooking.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Boiling the mustard sauce while stirring constantly. Flour thickens only when it is fully heated and evenly dispersed. Without constant stirring, the paste can lump or scorch on the bottom of the pan, leaving a grainy, uneven sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, pepper, cauliflower, flour, mustard, turmeric. 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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