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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, seasoned with mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the vegetables and salt them overnight.

  2. Boil the vinegar in a large pot.

  3. In a bowl, mix the ground mustard, flour, and curry with a little cold vinegar to form a paste.

Cook

  1. Add the paste to the boiling vinegar along with the whole spices.

  2. Stir in the salted vegetables.

  3. Let it boil for one minute.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Cauliflower
Provides firm, crisp pieces that hold their shape in the hot brine.
Green tomatoes
Adds bulk and a tart, slightly acidic bite to the pickle.
Vinegar
Acts as the brine that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp acidity.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent heat and helps thicken the brine once cooked into the paste.
Flour
Thickens the mustard paste so the brine becomes smooth and clings to the vegetables.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour.

The step that matters

Mixing the mustard paste with cold vinegar. Mixing the ground mustard and flour with cold vinegar before adding them to hot liquid prevents lumps, so the thickened brine stays smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, celery, cucumber, tomato, pepper, vinegar, 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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