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Salad

Virginia Mixed Pickle

A preserved mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, and spices pickled in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Virginia Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and large onions.

  2. Cut the cabbage as for slaw.

  3. Quarter the cucumbers lengthwise, then cut the cucumbers into 2‑inch pieces, leaving the peel on.

  4. Add the small onions whole.

  5. Mix everything with coarse sea salt thoroughly.

  6. Let stand for 24 hours.

  7. Drain off the juice.

  8. Pour vinegar and water over the pickles.

  9. Let stand for 1–2 days.

  10. Strain again as dry as possible.

Spice and pickle

  1. Mix the spices well, except for the ground mustard.

  2. Boil 1½ gallons of fresh apple vinegar.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar over the pickles three mornings in succession, using the same vinegar each time.

  4. On the third day, add 1 pound of sugar to the vinegar and boil.

  5. Pour the boiling vinegar over the pickles as before.

  6. Mix the salad oil and ground mustard with a small portion of the vinegar.

  7. Add the mixture when cold.

  8. Omit the oil if not preferred.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
Provide bulk and a tart, firm texture once salted and drained.
Cucumbers
Supply crunch that holds up through repeated hot-vinegar pouring.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows in the hot vinegar.
Apple vinegar
Acidic brine that preserves the vegetables and sets their tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Salad oil
Adds richness and carries the mustard flavour through the pickles.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If they are not drained and pressed as dry as possible, the extra liquid dilutes the vinegar and the pickles can turn soft and spoil sooner.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, cabbage, horseradish, mustard, pepper, 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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