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Yellow Mustard Pickles

Pickles of cucumbers, cauliflower, onions, and peppers simmered in a mustard and turmeric brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Yellow Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the cucumbers, cauliflower, onions, and peppers in hot salted water (use ½ cup of salt).

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, mustard, and turmeric into a smooth paste with a little cider vinegar.

  2. Add the paste to the remaining cider vinegar and sugar in a preserving kettle, stirring carefully to prevent burning.

  3. Add the scalded vegetables to the kettle and bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for one hour, stirring constantly.

Age

  1. Let the pickles sit for three weeks before using.

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

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

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce, giving the pickling liquid a smooth, thick body.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their characteristic yellow color.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the pickle and soaks up the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the paste into the kettle. Flour-thickened sauces scorch easily on the bottom of the pot, and scorched flour turns bitter and dark. Stirring carefully while adding the paste and during simmering keeps the sauce smooth and evenly heated.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, cider, vinegar, flour, mustard. 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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