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Mustard Pickle

A pickle made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, green peppers, mustard, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Layer the cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cauliflowers, and green peppers in a bowl with salt and let sit overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the vegetables and heat them in a mixture of 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar until scalding.

  3. Drain again and set aside.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a pot, mix the flour, ground mustard, sugar, and vinegar, then boil while stirring until thick and smooth.

  2. Add the vegetables to the pot and cook until heated through.

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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

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

Cucumbers
Their firm flesh holds shape and gives the pickles a crisp bite after brining.
Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce so it coats the vegetables instead of running off.
Ground mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Green tomatoes
Add tart body and hold their shape in the thick sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mustard sauce while stirring. Flour thickens only when it boils with liquid, and stirring prevents lumps from forming on the bottom of the pot. Stop too early and the sauce stays thin and grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  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, sugar. 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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