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Chopped Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, mango peppers, and cucumbers in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, mango peppers, and cucumbers separately.

  2. Let them stand for several hours covered lightly with coarse sea salt.

  3. Drain the vegetables and heat them in weak vinegar.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the strong vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, cloves, and ginger root.

  2. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves, then pour it over the vegetables.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the pickles for later use.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the vinegar and sugar flavors.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Onions
Contribute savory bulk and a sharp, aromatic note once pickled.
Cucumbers
Add crunch and moisture to the finished pickle.
Mustard seeds
Add a pungent, sharp aroma that carries through the vinegar.

The step that matters

Salting the vegetables. Salting draws out water from the chopped vegetables, so they stay firmer and absorb less liquid in the pickle. Skipping or shortening the salting step can leave the pickle soft and watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mango, pepper, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mango, pepper, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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