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Cauliflower Pickle

A pickled cauliflower preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Cauliflower Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Cut off the leaves of the cauliflower.

  2. Cut the cauliflower florets into neat pieces.

  3. Pour boiling water over the cauliflower pieces and let them stand in it for five minutes.

  4. Drain the cauliflower.

  5. Sprinkle the cauliflower with coarse sea salt and let it stand for twelve hours.

  6. Spread the cauliflower out on a sieve to dry.

Pickle and store

  1. Fill pickle jars with the dried cauliflower.

  2. Boil vinegar with peppercorns, ginger, mace, and cayenne.

  3. Allow the vinegar to cool.

  4. Pour the cooled vinegar over the cauliflower in the jars.

  5. Cover the jars closely.

  6. Store the jars for use.

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. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Cauliflower + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm body of the pickle that holds its texture in brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cauliflower, firming it and preparing it to absorb the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the cauliflower and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Peppercorns
Contribute pungent, aromatic heat that flavours the pickling vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that infuses into the vinegar.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Drying the cauliflower before filling the jars. If the cauliflower stays wet, excess water dilutes the vinegar and weakens the acidity that preserves it, and the pieces soften. Drying on a sieve lets surface moisture drain away so the vinegar can penetrate evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, ginger, vinegar):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, ginger, 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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