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Mixed Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix of tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and cucumbers in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle the cut vegetables with coarse sea salt and let them drain overnight in a thin cloth bag.

  2. In the morning, rinse the vegetables.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a large pot, boil the vinegar.

  2. Stir in the brown sugar until dissolved.

  3. Wet the black pepper and mustard with cold vinegar.

  4. Stir the wet pepper and mustard into the hot vinegar.

Cook

  1. Add the rinsed vegetables and boil until the mixture thickens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and body of the pickle.
Onions
Add bulk and a sharp, savory flavor that mellows as they cook.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp-tender texture after simmering.
Cucumbers
Add bulk and a crisp bite to the finished pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness and adds depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture thickens. Salted vegetables release water, and the mixture must be boiled long enough for the vinegar and sugar to reduce and thicken the liquid. Stopping early leaves a thin, watery pickle.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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