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Mixed Pickle

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and spices.

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 ↓

Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Combine sliced green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the mixture through a sieve.

Pickle and serve

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, celery seed, black pepper, ground mustard, and allspice.

  2. Heat the mixture until it just comes to a boil.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the drained vegetables.

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

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

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickling liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and reducing their moisture before pickling.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, earthy flavor to the pickling liquid.
Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle, absorbing the sweet-sour brine as the main vegetable.

The step that matters

Drain the salted vegetables thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the vegetables overnight. If they are not drained well, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar brine, weakening its preserving power and flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, pepper. 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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