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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, grated horseradish, mustard, pepper, green peppers, spices, and cauliflower.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick green tomatoes before they get tough.

  2. Soak tomatoes in weak brine for 3 days, then drain.

Cook and jar

  1. Tie the green peppers, cinnamon, and cloves in a muslin bag.

  2. Place the bag in a tin or earthenware dish and boil until tender.

  3. Combine all ingredients and pour boiling vinegar spiced with cloves and cinnamon over them.

  4. Can while hot in glass fruit 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and soften into a tender, tangy texture after brining.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and bulk that softens during cooking.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during cooking and pickling.
Ground mustard
Contributes sharp heat and flavor that blends into the pickling liquid.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture that holds its shape in the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar over the mixture. The vinegar must be hot enough to help preserve the pickles and to soak the spices into the vegetables. Pouring it boiling and canning while hot helps seal the jars and keep the contents safe for storage.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, horseradish, mustard, pepper, cinnamon, clove, turmeric):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, horseradish, mustard, pepper, cinnamon, clove, turmeric. 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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