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Spanish Pickles

A preserved cucumber and vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, celery seed, turmeric, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak the cucumbers in brine that can float an egg for 3 days.

  2. Slice the onions.

  3. Chop the cabbage and tomatoes.

  4. Sprinkle with ½ pint of coarse sea salt per peck.

  5. Squeeze the brine out of the cucumbers.

  6. Wipe the cucumbers off.

  7. Peel the cucumbers.

  8. Slice the cucumbers.

Cook and bottle

  1. Simmer all ingredients together in a kettle for 30 minutes.

  2. Bottle the 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Brining firms and seasons them, and they provide the crisp body of the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar-free brine and salt.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavor that deepens during simmering.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a warm, earthy aroma.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp texture that holds up through simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering all ingredients together. Salted vegetables release water and soften as they cook. Simmering too long can turn them mushy, while stopping too early leaves the pickle raw-tasting and the flavors unmerged.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, onion, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, onion, mustard, celery, turmeric, sugar. 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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