Why it works: Cauliflower and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 888 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Cauliflower Pickled
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cauliflower
Pick and wash the cauliflower florets, cut off 3 pounds of the flowered buds, and arrange them in small equal-sized bunches.
Soak the bunches in a pan of cold water.
Bring lightly salted water to a boil in a saucepan and add the cauliflower.
Boil for 6 minutes, then drain and place in an earthen jar.
Pickle and store
Pour hot boiling vinegar over the cauliflower and cover the jar until the next day.
The next day, drain off the vinegar, boil it again with a little salt, and pour it hot over the cauliflower in the jar.
Once cooled, cover tightly and store in a cool place.
If using glass jars, pour the vinegar in slowly to prevent cracking.
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.
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Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together888 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
- Cauliflower florets
- Forms the crisp, firm body of the pickle that holds its texture in the brine.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavour of the pickled cauliflower.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot vinegar into glass jars. Pouring hot vinegar slowly helps prevent thermal shock, which can crack glass. Pouring it quickly over cold glass creates a sudden temperature difference that can break the jar.
“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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