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Green Cucumber Mustard Pickle

A pickled cucumber dish flavored with mustard, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and mustard 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 ↓

Green Cucumber Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Combine cucumbers and salt in a bowl and let stand overnight.

  2. Drain cucumbers in a colander.

Cook the pickles

  1. In a saucepan, combine cucumbers and sliced onions.

  2. Cover with vinegar and heat.

  3. In a bowl, mix sugar, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and English mustard.

  4. Add the mixture to the saucepan and boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and fill small jars.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cucumbers
Form the crisp-textured body of the pickle, which salting helps firm up.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their characteristic yellow colour and earthy aroma.
English mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that defines the mustard pickle.
White onions
Add savoury sweetness and texture that softens during simmering.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 5 minutes after adding the spice mix. Boiling dissolves the sugar and fully cooks the spices into the vinegar, so the flavour blends evenly. Too little heat leaves the spice raw and the pickles harsh and unevenly seasoned.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, pepper, 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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