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Mustard Pickles

A pickled cucumber, onion, and cauliflower mixture flavored with mustard, flour, sugar, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers, onions, and cauliflower in strong salt water overnight.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, flour, sugar, and turmeric with a small amount of vinegar to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the remaining vinegar and cook until smooth, being careful not to burn.

Combine

  1. Add the pickles and heat thoroughly.

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

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles and absorb the sauce as they heat.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, sauce-like coating.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens the flavor.
Turmeric
Gives the sauce its bright yellow color and mild earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the paste until smooth without burning. Flour thickens only when it is fully cooked and evenly dispersed in the liquid. Scorching on the bottom of the pan creates a bitter, burnt taste that spreads through the whole sauce, so stir constantly over moderate heat.

Swap the onion

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

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

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