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Mixed Pickle

A fermented vegetable pickle made with cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and spices, then boiled and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the onions and pour boiling water over them. Let them stand for 15 minutes.

  2. Chop the cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, and green peppers.

  3. Mix all the chopped ingredients together and sprinkle with coarse sea salt in layers. Let stand for 1 hour.

Pickle and season

  1. Drain the mixture and cover it with vinegar for 24 hours.

  2. After draining, add 2 ounces of cloves, 2 ounces of mustard seed, black pepper, mace, celery seed, and horseradish to every gallon of pickle.

Boil and bottle

  1. Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes and then bottle it tightly.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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

Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk that holds its texture through salting and pickling.
Cucumbers
Provide crisp body and absorb the vinegar and spice flavours.
Green tomatoes
Add firm body and tartness that suits the vinegar brine.
White onions
Contribute sharp aroma that mellows during soaking and boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens their flavour.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws out a lot of water, and if the mixture is not drained well the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar cover and softens the vegetables, weakening both flavour and keeping quality.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, tomato, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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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