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Pickling Cauliflower

A pickled cauliflower prepared by boiling in salted water, then brining with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickling Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Break the cauliflower into small pieces.

  2. Boil the cauliflower in a strong saltwater solution for 10 minutes.

  3. Skim out the pieces.

  4. Check that the pieces are tender enough for a splint to pass through the stems.

  5. Drain the cauliflower on a towel until thoroughly cold.

Pickle and serve

  1. Place the cauliflower in a pickle jar with whole cloves, allspice, black pepper, and cinnamon sticks tied in a cloth.

  2. Boil the brine and skim it.

  3. Pour the brine over the cauliflower.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the pickled texture and absorbs the spiced brine as the main ingredient.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cauliflower in the boiling solution and helps draw flavour into the florets.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the brine that infuses the pickle.
Cinnamon sticks
Adds sweet, woody aroma to the brine as it infuses the pickle.

The step that matters

Check that the pieces are tender enough for a splint to pass through the stems.. Cauliflower cooked too briefly stays firm and crunchy, while overcooking makes it soft and mushy. A skewer test shows whether the florets have softened enough to take up the brine evenly without losing their shape.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon. 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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