Skip to main content
Preserve

Spanish Pickle

A pickled vegetable mix of cucumbers, cabbage, peppers, onions, and spices in a mustard and vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spanish Pickle

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 ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cucumbers and cabbage, then sprinkle with salt and let stand for 6 to 8 hours.

  2. Slice the green peppers and let them stand in salt water for a few hours.

  3. Slice the white onions.

Make the pickles

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, white mustard seed, turmeric, celery seed, sugar, and cider vinegar.

  2. In a kettle, layer the dressing and vegetables alternately, then cook until thick.

  3. Add curry powder for extra flavor, if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 base that absorbs the sweet-sour dressing.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a firm crunch that holds up through cooking.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives their tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and helps thicken the dressing.
White mustard seed
Contributes the sharp, pungent mustard flavor that defines the pickle.
White onions
Add savory sharpness and aroma to the layered vegetables.

The step that matters

Cook the layered pickles until thick. Cooking until thick lets the vinegar and sugar blend into a syrupy dressing that coats the vegetables. Stopping too early leaves the pickles thin and watery, while overcooking can make the vegetables soft and mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, turmeric, celery, 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

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding64 recipesCornmeal mushCornmeal mush12 recipes