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Mustard Pickle

A pickle of cauliflower, onions, cucumbers, and string beans in a mustard and turmeric vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak cauliflower, onions, cucumbers, and string beans in brine for 3 days, changing the brine each day.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil 1 gallon of vinegar with 1 pound of whole spices for 20 minutes.

  2. Mix 1 pound of mustard and ½ pound of powdered turmeric with cold vinegar.

  3. Add the mustard mixture to the boiling vinegar and boil for 5 minutes.

Finish

  1. Pour the mixture over the pickled vegetables.

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. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidic liquid that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and helps thicken the dressing.
Powdered turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy flavor.
Whole spices
Infuse the hot vinegar with aroma and warm flavor.
Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp vegetable body of the pickle.
Cucumbers
Add crunch and a fresh, crisp texture after pickling.

The step that matters

Adding the mustard mixture to the boiling vinegar. Mustard mixed into hot vinegar can scorch or turn bitter, and it may clump if not stirred well. Mixing it with cold vinegar first and then adding it to the boiling vinegar helps it blend smoothly and gives a more even, mellow flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, turmeric, cauliflower, cucumber, beans):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, turmeric, cauliflower, cucumber, beans. 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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