Name: Yellow Pickle
Ingredients: 1 lb ginger, sliced and dried; 1 lb horseradish, scraped; 1 lb white mustard seed, washed and dried; 1 lb garlic, salted, sliced and dried; 1 lb nutmegs; 1 ounce long peppers; 1 ounce turmeric; 1½ gallons vinegar

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 ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Combine ginger, horseradish, mustard seed, garlic, nutmegs, long peppers, and turmeric in a kettle.
Pour vinegar over the vegetables and spices.
Heat over a clear fire and let boil for a few moments.
Transfer the mixture into jars and seal tightly.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,776 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,279 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together437 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Nutmeg + turmerictop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White mustard seed: Provides sharp, pungent heat and body to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar: Acidifies the mixture, preserving the vegetables and spices and sharpening flavour.
Garlic: Adds pungent, savoury flavour that mellows as the pickle sits.
Horseradish: Contributes sharp, volatile heat that carries through the vinegar.
Turmeric: Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy, bitter note.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, horseradish, mustard, garlic, pepper, turmeric, vinegar):

Cuminfits better
Allspicefits better
Tarragonfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, horseradish, mustard, garlic, pepper, turmeric, 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.