Skip to main content
Main

Virginia Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture of onions, cucumbers, cabbage, and spices preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Virginia Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the small onions and leave them whole.

  2. Slice the large onions and cabbage.

  3. Quarter the cucumbers lengthwise and cut them into two‑inch strips.

  4. Mix all vegetables with salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  5. Drain the mixture and pour vinegar and water over it.

  6. Let it stand for a day, then drain well.

Spice and pour the vinegar

  1. Add the spices, except for the ground mustard.

  2. Pour boiling hot vinegar over the pickles.

  3. Heat the same vinegar and pour it over the pickles for three consecutive mornings.

  4. On the third morning, add 1 pound of sugar to the vinegar before boiling.

  5. Mix the mustard and oil with a small portion of the vinegar and add it when cold.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cinnamon + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main crisp vegetable body of the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity with sweetness.
White onions
Add bulk, sharp flavour and crunch to the mixture.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a firm, crisp texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar over the pickles. Salt-drawn vegetables must be drained well first, otherwise excess water dilutes the vinegar and weakens the acidity that keeps the pickles preserved and crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cucumber, cinnamon, celery, cabbage, turmeric, horseradish):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cucumber, cinnamon, celery, cabbage, turmeric, horseradish. 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes