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Yellow Pickle

A fermented pickle made from cauliflower, cabbages, carrots, French beans, onions, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the spices

  1. Dry the mustard seed, long pepper, black pepper, garlic, turmeric, mace, horseradish, and coarse sea salt thoroughly.

  2. Pour 1 gallon of cold vinegar over the dried ingredients.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cauliflower, cabbages, carrots, and French beans into small pieces.

  2. Strew salt over the vegetables and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables on cloths and dry them on hair sieves in the sun or near the fire for 12 days.

  4. Add the small onions and let them dry for 2 more days.

Pickle and rest

  1. Place the dried vegetables in a large jar with the vinegar.

  2. Let the pickle stand near the fire or in a warm place, but not hotter than new milk.

  3. After 10 days, the pickle will be ready for use.

  4. If it is too thick, add a little boiling vinegar.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown mustard seed
Provides the pungent, sharp flavour that characterises the pickle.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the pickling liquid.
Cold vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid that keeps the vegetables acidic and sharp.
Cauliflower
Forms the firm, bulky vegetable base of the pickle.
Cabbages
Contributes bulk and a crisp texture to the pickled vegetables.
Carrots
Adds sweetness and colour along with body to the vegetable mix.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables fully before jarring. Removing moisture before the vegetables go into vinegar helps them stay firm and keeps the pickle from becoming watery or spoiling. Salting first draws out more water, which supports this drying.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

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