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Corn Pickle

A pickled corn and cabbage relish with peppers, vinegar, sugar, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the pickle

  1. Combine corn, cabbage, and red peppers in a large bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix vinegar, salt, sugar, and ground mustard.

  3. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and stir well.

Cook and store

  1. Let the mixture stand on the back of the stove and cook slowly for a short time.

  2. Transfer to airtight jars for storage.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Adds sweetness and a tender, juicy bite to the pickle.
Cabbage
Provides crisp texture and bulk that holds up to the brine.
Red peppers
Contribute sweetness, colour, and a mild crunch.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, savoury flavour that deepens the brine.

The step that matters

Cooking slowly on the back of the stove. Gentle, low heat softens the vegetables and lets the vinegar, sugar, and mustard blend into them without boiling the pieces to mush. Stirring keeps the heat even and the vegetables evenly coated.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pepper, vinegar, sugar, 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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