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Yellow Pickle

A pickled mixture of ginger, horseradish, onions, cabbage, and spices in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the vegetables in brine strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Let them remain in the brine for 2 days.

  3. Squeeze the vegetables well in a towel and place them in a jar.

  4. Cover the vegetables with cold vinegar, colored with 1 ounce of turmeric, and let them sit for 2 weeks.

Cook and seal

  1. In a bright kettle, combine the vegetables, 2 gallons of vinegar, spices, and sugar.

  2. Boil for 16 to 20 minutes.

  3. Pour into a jar and seal immediately with leather or enameled cloth.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and absorbs the brine and vinegar flavour as it soaks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp taste.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite that gives the pickle its character.
Turmeric
Colors the pickle yellow and adds a mild earthy flavour.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that deepens with the pickling.

The step that matters

Squeezing the vegetables dry before the jar. Excess brine or water left in the vegetables dilutes the vinegar and weakens the acidity that preserves the pickle, so they should be squeezed well in a towel before being covered with the vinegar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, horseradish, garlic, mustard, nutmeg, pepper, turmeric):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, horseradish, garlic, mustard, nutmeg, pepper, 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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