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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and spices soaked in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the cabbage, onions, and cucumbers.

  2. Pack the chopped vegetables in salt and let them sit overnight.

Soak and spice

  1. In the morning, drain the mixture and soak it in vinegar and water for 1-2 days.

  2. Drain again and add the spices.

Pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar and sugar together, then pour it over the mixture while hot.

  2. Repeat this process for 3 mornings, then add the ground mustard.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and keeps a firm, crisp texture.
Cucumbers
Adds crunch and fresh body to the pickle.
Onions
Adds savoury flavour and bulk to the mixture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Ground mustard
Adds pungency and a sharp, warm aroma.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt and the soak. Salting draws water out of the vegetables, and draining well before adding the vinegar mixture stops the pickle from becoming watery. Thorough draining keeps the vegetables crisp and the vinegar flavour concentrated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, horseradish, celery, mustard, cinnamon, turmeric):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, horseradish, celery, mustard, cinnamon, 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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