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Mixed Pickles

A mixture of pickled vegetables including peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, beans, horseradish, and spices in vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cabbage and break the cauliflower into pieces.

  2. Make a strong brine that will float an egg.

Brine and scald

  1. Scald the cabbage, cucumbers, onions, and cauliflower separately in boiling water.

  2. Soak all in the brine for 24 hours, except the peppers and horseradish.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In enough vinegar to cover all, add turmeric, black mustard seed, and black pepper.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 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
Firm flesh that stays crisp through brining and pickling.
Cabbage
Dense leaves that hold their crunch and absorb the brine and spices.
Cauliflower
Florets that soften slightly while keeping a firm, crisp bite.
Black mustard seed
Releases pungent, sharp flavour as it steeps in the hot vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles a bright yellow colour and earthy flavour.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their tang.

The step that matters

Soaking in the brine for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the vegetables by osmosis and firms their texture. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg, or the vegetables may soften or spoil during the long soak.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cucumber, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, horseradish, turmeric):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cucumber, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, horseradish, 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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