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Yellow Pickle

A mixed vegetable pickle made with mustard seeds, turmeric, cayenne, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and optional vegetables, finished with vinegar and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the white mustard seed, black mustard seed, turmeric, and cayenne in a bowl.

  2. Prepare a six-gallon jar.

Pack and brine

  1. Add the white cauliflower, sliced cabbage, sliced large onions, whole small onions, whole small cucumbers, and cut large cucumbers to the jar.

  2. If available, add nasturtium radish pods, string beans, and green grapes.

  3. Soak all ingredients in brine for 20 hours.

  4. Then strain.

Cover and finish

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the mixture until just covered, adding the spice mixture.

  2. Once cooled, mix in 1 pint of prepared mustard.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

White mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Black mustard seed
Adds a sharper, more pungent bite alongside the white seed.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and an earthy aroma.
Cayenne
Adds heat to balance the sweetness of the pickled vegetables.
White cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp vegetable base of the pickle.
White cabbage
Contributes crunch and bulk to the pickle.

The step that matters

Soak in brine for 20 hours. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming their texture. Soaking too briefly leaves them soft or watery, and the pickle may not keep well.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, turmeric, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, radish, beans):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, turmeric, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, radish, beans. 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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