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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and peppers in a mustard and turmeric brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine the small whole cucumbers, sliced large cucumbers, sliced green tomatoes, small button onions, cauliflower florets, and chopped green peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Make a brine by mixing 4 quarts of water with 1 pint of coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour the brine over the vegetables and let them stand for 24 hours.

  4. Heat the mixture just enough to scald it, then drain in a colander.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, 6 tablespoons of ground mustard, and 1 tablespoon of turmeric with enough cold vinegar to make a smooth paste.

  2. Add 1 cup of sugar and sufficient vinegar to make a total of 2 quarts.

  3. Boil the mixture until it thickens and is smooth, stirring constantly.

Combine and jar

  1. Add the drained vegetables and cook until heated through.

  2. Transfer to jars or bottles and seal.

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 + 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

Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce so it becomes smooth and clings to the vegetables.
Ground mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the brine, firming their texture.
Turmeric
Adds yellow color and a warm, earthy aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the mustard paste. Flour starch thickens only when it boils while stirred constantly; stopping early or letting it scorch leaves the sauce lumpy or burnt on the bottom.

Swap the onion

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

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

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