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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cabbage, and onions flavored with mustard, spices, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the green tomatoes, cabbage, and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Wash the vegetables with cold water and wring dry in a cloth.

Cook

  1. Boil the vegetables in vinegar mixed with mustard, white mustard seed, cloves, allspice, celery seed, turmeric powder, and brown sugar until tender.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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 pickle and soften into tender pieces during boiling.
Cabbage
Adds body and crunch that holds its shape through the long simmer.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth that mellows as they cook in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that deepens as the seeds steep in the hot vinegar.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and a molasses note.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the salted vegetables. Salting draws out water, and rinsing then wringing dry removes the excess salt and moisture. If the vegetables stay wet, they dilute the vinegar, weakening its preserving acidity and making the pickle watery and over-salted.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, vinegar, mustard, clove, allspice, celery):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, vinegar, mustard, clove, allspice, celery. 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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