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Spanish Pickled Onions

A pickled vegetable mix of cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, peppers, cauliflower, and mustard, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Spanish Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare cucumbers by removing seeds and cutting them into strips.

  2. Chop onions, green tomatoes, and cabbage finely.

  3. Soak chopped vegetables in salt water for a few hours, then drain.

Pickle

  1. In a large jar, layer the vegetables and cover with vinegar and spices to taste.

  2. Boil vinegar with mustard seeds, turmeric, and oil for a few minutes.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the vegetables in the jar, ensuring they are fully covered.

  4. Seal the jar and let it sit for at least one month before using.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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
Provide the crisp, watery body of the pickle that stays firm after brining.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during long pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Green tomatoes
Add tart flavor and firm texture that holds up to pickling.

The step that matters

Soaking the chopped vegetables in salt water. Salt draws water out of the vegetables by osmosis, so they stay crisp rather than soft. Draining them well before adding the vinegar also keeps the brine from being diluted and the pickle from turning watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, cabbage, green beans, pepper, cauliflower, mustard):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cabbage, green beans, pepper, cauliflower, 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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