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Mustard Pickles

Pickled cauliflower, green tomatoes, onions, peppers, and mustard in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut up the cauliflower and green tomatoes, and soak them overnight in salt and water.

  2. Drain the vegetables and cover them with boiling vinegar.

  3. Repeat the boiling process for three days.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp body of the pickle.
Green tomatoes
Adds bulk and a tart, firm texture that holds up to pickling.
Mustard
Contributes the pungent, sharp flavour that defines the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the pickling liquid so it clings to the vegetables.

The step that matters

Repeating the boil in vinegar over three days. Each boil softens the vegetables and drives in vinegar. Boiling too hard or too long can turn them mushy, while too few repeats may leave them crisp and under-preserved.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, vinegar, mustard, onion, sugar, pepper, 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.

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