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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
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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

Salt the tomatoes

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes in a stone jar, sprinkling salt between layers.

  2. Let them stand overnight, then drain off the water.

Pickle and store

  1. Place tomatoes in a preserving kettle and cover with cider vinegar.

  2. Bring to a boil once.

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

  4. 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; salting draws out water so they stay firm and crisp.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the tomatoes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during storage.
Black mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, slightly bitter bite and texture to the pickle.
White mustard seed
Adds milder pungency and texture to the pickle.
Onions
Add sweetness and savour that balances the sharp vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes by osmosis. Draining off that liquid before adding vinegar keeps the pickle from becoming watery and dilute, and helps the tomatoes stay firm.

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.

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