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Spanish Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and green peppers flavored with mustard, turmeric, celery seed, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

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 ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and green peppers finely.

  2. Salt the mixture well and let it stand overnight.

  3. Drain off the water from the mixture.

Cook and bottle

  1. Add yellow mustard, turmeric powder, celery seed, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture together for 30 minutes.

  3. Bottle the pickle when ready.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide tart, firm body once salted and cooked.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds shape through the boil.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Yellow mustard
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour to the sweet-sour mixture.

The step that matters

Salting and draining overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables through osmosis. Draining off that water before cooking keeps the pickle from becoming diluted and soft, so it stays crisp and concentrated in flavour.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, cucumber, pepper, mustard, turmeric, celery. 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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