Skip to main content
Main

Higdon Piccalilli

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers with mustard, cloves, turmeric, brown sugar, celery seed, and oil or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Higdon Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers finely.

  2. Press the chopped vegetables dry.

  3. Sprinkle the pressed vegetables with coarse sea salt.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture in vinegar for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the mustard seed, cloves, turmeric, brown sugar, and celery seed.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Stir in the mustard and salad oil or butter.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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
Makes up the bulk of the relish, providing body and a firm, tart texture.
Onions
Soften during cooking, adding savoury depth and body to the relish.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable note and some texture.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp tang and acidity that preserves the vegetables.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour that mellows as it cooks in the vinegar.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and a caramel depth.

The step that matters

Press the chopped vegetables dry. Removing excess moisture keeps the vinegar concentrated, so the relish has a sharp, well-set texture rather than a watery, diluted one.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, clove, turmeric, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, clove, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes