Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Pickle

Pickled tomatoes with horseradish, mustard seeds, celery seed, pepper, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spanish Pickle

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 ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes in a stone jar, sprinkling salt between layers, and let them stand overnight.

  2. Drain off the water and place the tomatoes in a preserving kettle.

Cook and pack

  1. Cover the tomatoes with cider vinegar and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix horseradish, mustard seeds, celery seed, black pepper, red pepper, and onions while the pickle is hot.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a stone jar, cover tightly, and store in a cool place.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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 pickle, and salting draws out water so they stay firm and crisp.
Cider vinegar
Adds the sour acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its tang.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickle its characteristic bite.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a slight crunch to the pickle.
White mustard seed
Adds mild, tangy flavour and a slight crunch to the pickle.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth that balances the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting the tomatoes overnight. Salt draws water out of the sliced tomatoes through osmosis. Draining that liquid before cooking keeps the pickle firm rather than watery and helps the vinegar penetrate evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, horseradish, mustard, celery, pepper, onion. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes