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Spanish Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and beans seasoned with mustard, horseradish, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

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 ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut cucumbers into 1-inch thick slices.

  2. Slice tomatoes thinly. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Rinse off the salt from the tomatoes.

Make the spice mixture

  1. Grate horseradish and mix with mustard seed and chopped red peppers.

  2. Add stick cinnamon to the mixture.

  3. Make a paste with mustard, celery seed, turmeric, and olive oil.

Pickle and rest

  1. Combine the vegetables in a pan and mix in the spices and paste thoroughly.

  2. Scald enough vinegar to cover the vegetables and pour it over them while hot.

  3. Stir the mixture every day or two. Let it sit for about two weeks before using.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together95 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
Provide the bulk of the pickled vegetable pieces and a crisp texture once brined.
Vinegar
Acidifies the brine, preserving the vegetables and giving the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the sweet-sour flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that mellows as the pickle rests.
White onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the hot vinegar brine.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar while it is hot. Scalding the vinegar and pouring it over the vegetables while hot helps soften them and lets the brine penetrate, which supports preservation. Covering the vegetables fully keeps them submerged so they do not spoil at the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, green beans, sugar, horseradish, mustard, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, green beans, sugar, horseradish, mustard, pepper. 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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