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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix flavored with mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rub mustard into a smooth paste with salad oil and vinegar.

  2. Add white pepper, cayenne pepper, horseradish, ginger, and celery seed to a stone jar.

  3. Pour in vinegar and brown sugar.

  4. Set the jar in a pot of cold water over the stove.

Cook and finish

  1. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for three hours, stirring occasionally.

  2. After boiling, add white mustard seed and turmeric.

  3. While at boiling point, stir in shredded cabbage, sliced cucumbers, tender beans, corn, and sliced onions.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Best mustard
Forms the smooth paste base and provides the pungent mustard flavor.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and crisp texture that holds up through the long simmer.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and fresh bulk to the finished pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens the flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, nutty bite and texture to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce for three hours. Long, gentle simmering with occasional stirring lets the mustard paste and spices blend and mellow while the vegetables soften, and prevents the bottom from scorching as the liquid reduces.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, horseradish, ginger, celery, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, horseradish, ginger, celery, vinegar, sugar. 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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