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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture with cauliflower, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and a mustard‑turmeric dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Combine cauliflower, onions, tiny pickles, cucumbers, green tomatoes, cold water, salt, and peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Heat the mixture in brine.

  4. Drain.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix flour, mustard, turmeric, and enough cold vinegar to form a paste.

  2. Add sugar and enough vinegar to make 2 quarts.

  3. Boil and stir until thickened, being careful not to scorch.

  4. Process the peppers in a meat chopper.

  5. Add to the dressing.

  6. Add the pickles to the dressing.

  7. Heat.

  8. Can.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 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

Cauliflower
Provides firm, crisp bulk that holds its texture in the pickle.
Cucumbers
Add crunch and fresh body that holds up through the brine and cooking.
Flour
Thickens the mustard dressing into a smooth, spoonable paste.
Powdered mustard
Gives the dressing its sharp, pungent flavor.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's acidity with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.

The step that matters

Boil and stir until thickened, being careful not to scorch. Flour thickens only when heated with liquid and needs constant stirring to dissolve evenly. Its starch settles and sticks to the pan bottom quickly, so the dressing can scorch and taste burnt if left unattended.

Swap the onion

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

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

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