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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, and horseradish in a vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, and horseradish.

  2. In a large bowl, combine all vegetables.

Make the brine and pickle

  1. In a separate pot, mix vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric; bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the vegetables and let cool.

  3. Transfer to jars and refrigerate.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and brine with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables and seasons the brine.
Cauliflower
Adds crisp texture and absorbs the flavor of the brine.
White cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, staying firm in the brine.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, horseradish, vinegar, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, horseradish, vinegar, sugar. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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