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Mixed Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix of cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, horseradish, beans, tomatoes, mustard seeds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, green peppers, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, horseradish, green beans, and green tomatoes in a large bowl.

  2. Soak the mixture in a strong brine for 24 hours.

  3. Drain for 3 hours, then sprinkle in black and white mustard seeds and black ground pepper.

Pickle and finish

  1. Add enough vinegar to cover and bring to a boil, adding a little alum.

  2. Drain again and let cool.

  3. Mix in ground mustard and cover with cider vinegar.

  4. Add turmeric to achieve desired color.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, bulk body of the pickle mix.
Black and white mustard seeds
Add sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during pickling.
Cider vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften in the brine.
Cauliflower
Contributes firm texture and absorbs the brine and spices.
Ground mustard
Adds pungency and helps thicken the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the alum while boiling. Alum helps vegetables stay firm through heating, so bringing the mixture to a boil too long can soften it. Add the alum only briefly and keep the boil controlled.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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