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Mustard Pickles

A pickled cucumber and vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, celery seed, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumbers, onion, cabbage, and red peppers finely.

  2. Add the small cucumbers and small onions whole.

  3. Sprinkle with ½ cup coarse sea salt and let stand for 24 hours.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Mix the dry mustard and flour with a little cold vinegar.

  2. Add the remaining vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, and celery seed to the mixture.

  3. Bring to a boil, then seal and store.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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
Provide the crisp, watery vegetable body of the pickle.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp texture that holds up after pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the mustard mixture so it becomes a smooth, thick sauce.
Dry mustard
Contributes pungent mustard flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the mustard and flour into cold vinegar before adding the rest. Dry mustard and flour clump easily in hot liquid. Blending them smoothly in a little cold vinegar first keeps the sauce free of lumps when it thickens on heating.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, sugar, vinegar, mustard, 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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