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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture flavored with mustard and turmeric.

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 ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine small cucumbers, large cucumbers, cauliflower, small onions, green tomatoes, and green peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Pour a brine made of 4 qt water and 1 pint coarse sea salt over the mixture and let it stand for 24 hours.

  3. After 24 hours, heat the mixture to a boil and then drain.

Make the mustard paste

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup flour, 6 tablespoons mustard, and 1 tablespoon turmeric seed with enough vinegar to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add vinegar to the paste until you have 2 qt total.

Cook and thicken

  1. Cook the mixture until it thickens to a cream and heat thoroughly.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
Make up the bulk of the pickle and give it its crisp, crunchy texture.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and a firm bite that holds up through the cooking.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the pickle.
Turmeric seed
Contributes a golden colour and earthy aroma to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the mustard paste into the vegetables. Flour thickens only when it is heated with liquid, so the mixture must be cooked long enough for the starch to swell. Otherwise the sauce stays thin or tastes floury.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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