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Mustard Pickle

A pickle made with cucumbers, green peppers, green beans, mustard, 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: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle cucumbers with salt and let them stand for several days.

Make the pickle

  1. Combine cucumbers, beans, and peppers in a kettle with vinegar.

  2. Add turmeric and brown sugar to the kettle.

  3. Make a paste with mustard and olive oil.

  4. Stir the paste into the pickle after it turns yellow.

  5. Add a small quantity of red pepper.

  6. Stir well once or twice a week.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a crisp, firm texture when salted.
Mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a mild earthy aroma.
Green peppers
Add vegetable bulk and a fresh, slightly bitter flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the pickle after it turns yellow. Adding the mustard paste too early or too late changes how evenly the pickle colors and seasons. Wait for the turmeric to color the brine, then stir the paste in thoroughly so it dissolves into the liquid rather than clumping.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, vinegar, turmeric, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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