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Mustard Pickles

Pickled cauliflower, onions, and cucumbers flavored with mustard, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber 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 ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook the cauliflower in weak vinegar until tender.

  2. Cook the onions in weak brine until clear but not soft.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Heat the vinegar and thicken it with flour and mustard.

  2. Add the other ingredients and cook for 30 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Bottle the mixture.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce so it coats the vegetables.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the sauce.
French mustard
Adds mustard flavour and body to the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens the flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring while the mixture cooks. The thickened mustard sauce contains flour and sugar, which can scorch on the bottom of the pan during the 30-minute simmer. Constant stirring prevents burning and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, cucumber, mustard, flour, pepper, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cucumber, mustard, flour, pepper, sugar, 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.

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