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Miked Pickles

A pickled mixture of cauliflower, string beans, onions, peppers, and tomatoes in cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Miked Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cauliflower, string beans, onions, red pepper, green peppers, and yellow tomatoes in a bowl.

  2. Scald the vegetables in a mixture of salt and water, then let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables and place them in a jar or pan.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Pour boiling cider vinegar over the vegetables until fully covered.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool before transferring it to glass bottles.

  3. Seal the bottles tightly.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Cauliflower
Provides the firm, crisp bulk that holds its texture through the brine and vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their sharp, tangy flavour.
String beans
Adds tender texture and a fresh, green vegetable bite to the mix.

The step that matters

Scalding the vegetables in salt water. Heating the vegetables briefly softens them just enough to absorb the brine, while over-cooking turns them mushy. The salt then draws out moisture during the 24-hour rest, which helps the pickles stay crisp and firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, beans, pepper, tomato, cider, vinegar):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, beans, pepper, tomato, cider, vinegar. 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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