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Mixed Pickles

A pickled assortment of cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, beans, peppers, cauliflower, celery, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald each vegetable separately in salt water until tender.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, boil 1½ quarts of vinegar and 2½ cups of sugar.

  2. In a bowl, mix ½ quart of cold vinegar with 1 cup of flour, 6 tablespoons of mustard, and 6 tablespoons of cinnamon.

  3. Pour the flour mixture into the boiling vinegar and sugar, and mix well.

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. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, sauce-like dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Pour the flour mixture into the boiling vinegar and sugar. Flour clumps easily if it meets hot liquid unevenly. Mixing the cold vinegar paste smooth first, then stirring it into the boiling liquid while mixing well, helps the dressing thicken evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, beans, pepper, cauliflower, celery, vinegar. 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 mixed pickles recipes

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