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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cauliflower, celery, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers flavored with mustard, turmeric, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cabbage and onions.

  2. Remove the tops from the cauliflower and chop the stalks finely.

  3. Boil the tomatoes, cauliflower stalks, and peppers in a little water until tender.

  4. Drain the water and mix the boiled vegetables with the chopped cabbage and onions.

  5. Chop the tomatoes and peppers.

  6. Cut the celery into small pieces.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar.

  2. Mix the flour, mustard, turmeric, sugar, and salt with enough water to make a thin batter.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling vinegar and cook until thick.

  4. Add the vegetables and boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Transfer the mixture into jars.

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 + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, thick pickle sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungent flavour that defines the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour and earthy aroma.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture and body to the pickled vegetable mix.

The step that matters

Stir the batter into the boiling vinegar. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid. Adding the batter to cold or weakly simmering vinegar can leave lumps, so stir constantly while it cooks until thick.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, celery, onion, cabbage, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, celery, onion, cabbage, pepper, vinegar, 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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