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Mexico Pickles

A pickled mixture of cabbage, green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers seasoned with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mexico Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

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

  2. Mix all chopped vegetables together in a large bowl.

  3. Layer the mixture in a container, sprinkling coarse sea salt between layers.

  4. Let it sit overnight, then squeeze out excess moisture with your hands.

  5. Cover the mixture with vinegar and let it sit for 24 hours.

  6. Squeeze out the moisture again and transfer the mixture to a jar.

Make the spiced syrup

  1. In a kettle, combine enough vinegar to cover the pickles with 2 pounds of sugar, cloves, ground cinnamon, allspice, and mace.

  2. Grind the allspice and tie it in a thin cloth before adding it to the kettle.

  3. Boil the mixture for a few minutes, then pour it over the pickles in the jar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables, firming them and helping them keep crisp.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickles.
Green tomatoes
Adds bulk and a tart, firm texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the moisture. Salting and squeezing draws water out of the vegetables. If too much liquid stays in, the pickles dilute the vinegar and turn soft and watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, cucumber, pepper, vinegar, sugar, clove. 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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