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Piccalilli

Piccalilli is a pickled relish of green tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, peppers, and cabbage, seasoned with salt, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, green peppers, and cabbage separately.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables and sprinkle with salt.

  3. Let the mixture drain in a basket for 24 hours.

Brine and drain

  1. Cover with vinegar and heat until it comes to a boil.

  2. Drain the mixture for three days.

Spice and pack

  1. Prepare hot vinegar with cinnamon, nutmeg, and mustard seed.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the drained vegetables.

  3. Pack into jars and seal tightly.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar as they soften.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up through the long salting and draining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating their flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavor to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables. Salt must draw out enough water over the full draining time; without it the vegetables stay wet, dilute the vinegar, and the pickle becomes soggy and spoils more easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, pepper, cabbage, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, pepper, cabbage, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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