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Pickled Girkins

Pickled gherkins with green peppers, onions, mustard seeds, celery seed, juniper berries, brown sugar, cider vinegar, and Chow-Chow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pickled Girkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gherkins in brine overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine the gherkins, green peppers, onions, mustard seeds, celery seed, juniper berries, brown sugar, and cider vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove until it scalds, but do not boil, and scald until thoroughly seasoned.

Bottle

  1. When ready to bottle, add the Chow-Chow and mix in the ground white mustard with a little cold vinegar.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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

Gherkins
Provide the main crisp, tangy pickled texture and flavour of the dish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Ground white mustard
Adds pungent heat and a sharp mustard flavour to the finished pickle.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Bringing the mixture only to a scald keeps the gherkins firmer and avoids overcooking them. Boiling can soften the cucumbers and make the pickle mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, celery, sugar, cider, vinegar. 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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