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Mixed Pickle and India Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture using brine, vinegar, mustard flour, turmeric, mustard seed, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Radish and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mixed Pickle and India Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Fill a large jar half full with brine made strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Add various pickling vegetables such as small onions, radish pods, cauliflower, French beans, gherkins, and sliced cucumbers.

  3. Let the vegetables soak in the brine for 10 to 12 days.

  4. Remove the vegetables from the brine.

  5. Drain the vegetables on sieves or cloths until dry.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the dried vegetables in a jar.

  2. Cover the packed vegetables with cold vinegar.

  3. Let them sit for 10 days to 2 weeks.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil the vinegar for the mixed pickle.

  2. Pour the boiled vinegar over the pickles 2 to 3 times.

  3. Mix ¼ pound mustard flour and 2 ounces turmeric with some cold vinegar.

  4. Add the rest of the vinegar to the mixture.

  5. Add ¼ pound white mustard seed and bruised ginger to the vinegar mixture.

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. Radish + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Radish + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Firm vegetables that stay crisp and take on the brine and vinegar flavour during pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables and seasons them during the brining stage.
Cold vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp, sour taste.
Mustard flour
Thickens the vinegar and adds pungent mustard flavour to the pickle.
Powdered turmeric
Adds a yellow colour and earthy aroma to the vinegar mixture.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a crunchy texture to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables before packing. Vegetables left wet after brining dilute the vinegar and can spoil or go soft. Draining them fully on sieves or cloths keeps the pickle crisp and stable.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, radish, cauliflower, beans, cucumber, cabbage, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, radish, cauliflower, beans, cucumber, cabbage, celery. 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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