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Bottled Mixed Pickles

A preserved mix of onions, cucumbers, green tomatoes, carrots, and cauliflower pickled in hot vinegar with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Bottled Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Cook the onions, cucumbers, green tomatoes, carrots, and cauliflowers in salted water until a fork easily pierces them, but do not let them become soft.

  2. While the vegetables are hot, layer them alternately in a glass jar until full.

Pack and seal

  1. Prepare hot vinegar with black or red peppers.

  2. Ensure the jar is hot, as you would for canning fruit.

  3. Pour the hot peppered vinegar over the vegetables and seal the jar.

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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 a savory, slightly sharp flavor to the pickle.
Cucumbers
Provides crisp texture and mild body once packed in the vinegar.
Green tomatoes
Adds firm texture and tart flavor that holds up to pickling.
Carrots
Contributes firm texture and a touch of natural sweetness.
Cauliflowers
Adds firm, tender florets that absorb the vinegar flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables only until a fork pierces them. Overcooking softens the cell walls, so the vegetables turn mushy and cannot keep a firm bite after they soak in the vinegar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, carrot, cauliflower, vinegar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, carrot, cauliflower, vinegar, pepper. 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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