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Salad

Salad Pickles

A pickled salad of cucumbers, onions, cabbage, and green peppers in a sweet and tangy vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salad Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped cucumbers, onions, cabbage, and green peppers in a bowl.

  2. Cover with water and 1 cup of salt; let stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the mixture thoroughly.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, scald 5 cups of vinegar and 1 cup of water.

  2. Make a paste with 1 pint of vinegar, flour, turmeric, and ground mustard.

  3. Add sugar, celery seed, and mustard seed to the scalded vinegar.

  4. Stir in the paste until it thickens, then remove from heat.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the drained chopped vegetables to the mixture and stir well.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, fresh-textured bulk of the salad.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body that holds up after pickling.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, sauce-like dressing.
White sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar for a sweet-sour flavor.
Vinegar
Acidifies the dressing, preserving the vegetables and giving them tang.
Ground mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir in the paste until it thickens, then remove from heat. Flour thickens only as it heats, and it can lump if added to hot liquid without stirring. Stirring constantly while the paste is added keeps the dressing smooth, and removing it from heat once thickened prevents scorching and an overly pasty texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, flour, sugar, turmeric):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, flour, sugar, turmeric. 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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