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Variety Pickles

A pickled assortment of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bean pods, radish pods, and garden pepper rings in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Variety Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare, slice, and salt the tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions in separate jars using ½ pint of salt. Let the jars stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the vegetables well, wringing and pressing them in a cloth.

  3. Sprinkle radish-pods and nasturtium seeds with salt. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  4. Boil the bean pods in salted water until tender. Drain the bean pods.

  5. Place each vegetable in a separate jar and cover with cold weak vinegar for 24 hours. Drain well, pressing to remove juice.

  6. Cook the tomatoes as directed in the 'Chopped Pickles' recipe.

Pack and cover

  1. Mix all vegetables together.

  2. In a stone jar, layer the mixture with mustard seed, chopped horseradish, cinnamon, garden pepper rings, and cloves. Cover with cider vinegar. Let stand overnight.

Boil and finish

  1. Drain off the vinegar.

  2. Boil the vinegar in a porcelain kettle, adding 1 pint of brown sugar for every gallon of vinegar. Skim well.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles.

  4. Continue to drain and boil for several days.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and, once salted and drained, give firm texture.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and bulk once salted to draw out excess moisture.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma that blends into the vinegar brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and rounds out the flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they stay crisp and less watery in the jar.

The step that matters

Drain and press the salted vegetables thoroughly. Salt draws moisture out of the vegetables, and any water left behind dilutes the vinegar brine and softens the pickle. Wringing the vegetables in a cloth removes that water so the finished pickle stays crisp and keeps well.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, radish, vinegar, cinnamon, mustard, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, radish, vinegar, cinnamon, mustard, clove. 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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