Name: Cauliflower Pickle
Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower; Brine (saltwater solution); Whole black pepper; Allspice; Stick cinnamon; Vinegar; Mustard

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cauliflower Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Select a full-sized cauliflower and remove all leaves.
Separate the cauliflower into bunches and steep in brine for two days.
Drain the cauliflower and place it into bottles.
Add whole black pepper, allspice, and stick cinnamon to the bottles.
Boil vinegar and mix in mustard gradually until smooth and pourable.
Pour the mustard-vinegar mixture over the cold cauliflower and seal the jars while hot.

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.

Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, cinnamon, vinegar, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Radishfits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, cinnamon, vinegar, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.