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Mixed Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, string beans, cucumbers, peppers, okra, onions, cauliflower, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the green tomatoes and string beans until tender.

  2. Combine cucumbers, green peppers, okra pods, small onions, and cauliflower in a bowl.

  3. Cover the vegetables with coarse sea salt.

  4. Let stand for 24 hours.

  5. Rinse the vegetables with water.

  6. Drain well.

Season and pack

  1. Add ground mustard, ground cinnamon, celery seed, and turmeric to the vegetables.

  2. Put the mixture in a kettle.

  3. Scrape the horseradish roots.

  4. Cover the kettle with vinegar.

  5. Add sugar if desired.

  6. Seal in glass jars.

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. Beans + okratop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Add bulk and a tart, firm texture to the pickle mix.
Cucumbers
Provide crisp texture that holds up through pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and preparing them for pickling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, preserving it and giving it sharp flavor.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent flavor and aroma that stands up to the vinegar.
Turmeric
Contributes yellow color and an earthy, aromatic flavor.

The step that matters

Salting and standing the vegetables for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, which firms their texture and keeps them crisp. Rinsing and draining well afterward removes excess salt so the final pickle is not overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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