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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable dish flavored with mustard, sugar, flour, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mustard sauce

  1. Mix the dry ingredients (sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric) and moisten with cold vinegar.

  2. Stir this mixture into boiling vinegar and boil for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly until thick.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare your chosen vegetables and let them stand in weak brine for 24 hours.

  2. Cook the vegetables briefly in the same brine, then drain.

Combine and pack

  1. Add the mustard paste to the vegetables and pack them into jars or pots.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Turmeric + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 spoonable as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the pickle.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its bright yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Stir the mustard mixture constantly while it boils. Flour and mustard can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring keeps the paste smooth and lets the flour starch thicken evenly as it heats.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric, cabbage, cucumber):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric, cabbage, cucumber. 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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