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Piccalilli, or Indian Pickle

A fermented pickle made from cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, apple, French beans, plums, ginger, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Piccalilli, or Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Dry the vegetables

  1. Lay the quartered cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, apple, French beans, and plums on a hair sieve.

  2. Strew a large handful of coarse sea salt over the vegetables.

  3. Set the salted vegetables in the sun for 3 to 4 days until very dry.

  4. Put the dried vegetables into a stone jar.

Prepare the ginger

  1. Scrape and slice the ginger.

  2. Salt the sliced ginger.

  3. Dry the salted ginger in the sun.

Pickle and keep

  1. Combine the dried ginger with 1 gallon of vinegar, 2 ounces of black pepper, ½ ounce of turmeric, and ¼ pound of bruised mustard seed.

  2. Pour the vinegar mixture over the vegetables in the jar.

  3. Seal the jar tightly.

  4. Add fresh vegetables as they come into season, along with more vinegar as needed.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Apple + plumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Melon + plumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky body of the pickle that holds its texture in brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they dry and take on the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Ginger
Adds aromatic heat and spice that infuses the vinegar and vegetables.
Black pepper
Contributes pungent spice that flavours the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Drying the salted vegetables until very dry. Salting and sun-drying removes surface water so the vegetables do not dilute the vinegar or spoil. Vegetables left damp can soften and ferment poorly, so they need to be dry before they go into the jar.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, beans, plum, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, beans, plum, ginger. 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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