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Mustard Pickles

Pickled vegetables including onions, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers flavored with mustard, turmeric, ginger, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Place the onions, cabbage, cauliflowers, green tomatoes, cucumbers, string beans, and red peppers in salt overnight.

  2. In the morning, wipe the pickles dry.

  3. Cut larger onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers in half.

  4. Chop the cabbage and cauliflower into small pieces.

Make the pickles

  1. Scald all the vegetables in enough vinegar to cover them.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the ground white pepper, ground mustard, ground turmeric, and ground ginger with a little cold water.

  3. Stir this mixture into the hot vinegar after removing the pickles.

  4. Boil the vinegar mixture well and pour it over the pickles.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

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

Cabbage
Provides firm, crisp bulk that holds its texture through the pickling.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp pieces that absorb the spiced vinegar.
Ground mustard
Gives the sauce its sharp, pungent flavour and yellow colour.
Ground turmeric
Adds a golden colour and earthy flavour to the vinegar mixture.
Vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid that preserves and sharpens the vegetables.

The step that matters

Stirring the spice paste into the hot vinegar. Ground mustard and spices can clump or scorch if added dry or to vinegar that is too hot or unevenly mixed. Mixing them first with a little cold water makes a smooth slurry that disperses evenly and keeps the sauce from curdling into lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, beans, pepper, 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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