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Heath Piccalilli

A pickled relish of tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, celery, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Heath Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine chopped tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, onions, celery, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture thoroughly and scald it in 2 quarts of vinegar.

  4. Drain again and pack the mixture into jars.

Pickle and cover

  1. Once cold, pour over 2 quarts of vinegar mixed with horseradish, mace, cinnamon, allspice, mustard, cayenne, celery seed, and mustard seed.

  2. Cover with a plate to keep the mixture submerged in vinegar.

  3. Then cover the top with a thick cloth.

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 + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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. Pepper + celerytop 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the chopped body and tart flavour once pickled.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture that holds up through scalding and pickling.
Cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh vegetable body to the pickle.
Onions
Add pungency that mellows and sweetens during the pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the whole mixture.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the piccalilli its bite.

The step that matters

Draining thoroughly before scalding. Excess liquid from the salted vegetables would dilute the vinegar and weaken the pickle, so the mixture must be well drained before it goes into the hot vinegar.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, cucumber, onion, celery, vinegar, horseradish):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, cucumber, onion, celery, vinegar, horseradish. 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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