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Spanish Pickles

A pickled cucumber and cabbage mixture seasoned with mustard, celery seed, turmeric, and sugar, then boiled and bottled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle cucumbers and cabbage with coarse sea salt, place in a bag, and drain overnight.

  2. Combine the drained cucumbers, cabbage, onions, and red pepper in a pot.

Cook and seal

  1. Dissolve turmeric and mustard in vinegar to prevent lumping.

  2. Add white mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, ground mustard, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  3. Boil the mixture until it begins to thicken.

  4. Bottle and seal while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery bulk that the salting step firms up for the pickle.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and crunch, and holds its texture through the cooking.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and body to the cooked pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the pickle and balances the sugar.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Ground english mustard
Supplies sharp mustard flavour and helps thicken the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve turmeric and mustard in vinegar before adding. Dry powders like turmeric and ground mustard clump when added straight to a hot mixture. Dissolving them first in vinegar spreads them evenly, so the pickle has uniform colour and no lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, celery, turmeric, 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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