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Highden Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers in vinegar with mustard and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Highden Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop equal quantities of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the mixture stand for one day.

Pickle and store

  1. Drain the water off and pour on boiling vinegar mixed with mustard and spices.

  2. Seal the jar and store.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Green tomatoes
Provides the bulk of the pickle and a firm, tart base once salted and drained.
Cucumbers
Adds crisp texture and moisture that the salt draws out and the vinegar then preserves.
Onions
Contributes pungent flavour that mellows during the standing and pickling.
Green peppers
Adds fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour and crunch to the mix.
Boiling vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt stand. Salt draws water out of the vegetables over the standing day. Pouring off that liquid before adding the vinegar keeps the pickle from diluting and helps the vegetables stay crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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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