Skip to main content
Main

Mustard Pickles

Pickled vegetables flavored with mustard, turmeric, and curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower 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. Chop the onions, cucumbers, celery, cauliflower, and green peppers.

  2. Soak the chopped vegetables in brine for 24 hours.

  3. Boil the vegetables in the brine, then drain them thoroughly.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. In a pot, combine the boiling vinegar, sugar, flour, mustard, turmeric, and curry powder.

  2. Pour the mixture over the drained vegetables.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + cauliflowertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main crisp, bulky body of the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the mustard vinegar mixture into a smooth, clinging sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables thoroughly after boiling. Excess water left on the vegetables dilutes the boiling vinegar dressing and makes the sauce thin and watery. Thorough draining lets the thickened mustard mixture coat the pieces properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, celery, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, celery, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, sugar, flour. 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.

More mustard pickles recipes

Mixed 7 See all 151 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipes