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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mix of cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, string beans, onions, peppers, and green tomatoes in a mustard‑vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, string beans, onions, peppers, and green tomatoes into small pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables well.

Make the pickling liquid and cook

  1. In a kettle, combine the vinegar, mustard, mustard seed, allspice, ground pepper, and whole cloves.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the vegetables and scald until they become tender and yellow.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the pickles.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and holds its crisp texture under brining.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and firm texture to the mixed pickle.
Cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh moisture to the pickle mix.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, nutty flavor that seasons the pickling liquid.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Scalding the vegetables. Scald only until the vegetables turn tender and yellow. Overcooking makes them soft and mushy, while too little heat leaves them raw and hard to pickle through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, beans, pepper, tomato, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, beans, pepper, tomato, 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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