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Piccalilli, or Indian Pickle

A pickled relish of assorted vegetables, ginger, and spices preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Piccalilli, or Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Lay the vegetables on a sieve and sprinkle with salt, then set them in the sun for 3-4 days until very dry.

Prepare the ginger

  1. In a stone jar, combine ginger with salt and water.

  2. The next day, scrape and slice the ginger, then salt and dry it in the sun.

Pickle

  1. Add the dried ginger to the vinegar along with pepper, turmeric, and bruised mustard seed.

  2. Seal the jar and add the dried vegetables.

  3. Continue to add fresh vegetables and vinegar as they come into season.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  3. Apple + plumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Melon + plumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflowers
Firm vegetables that hold their shape and crunch after salting and pickling.
White cabbage
Dense, crisp leaves that stay firm and absorb the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent heat that flavours the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour and earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables in the sun. Salting and drying draws water out of the vegetables before they go into vinegar. If they stay damp, they dilute the pickling liquid and become soft rather than crisp.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, beans, plum, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melon, beans, plum, ginger. 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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