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Yellow Pickle

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Quarter the cabbage and tie it with thread.

  2. Place the cabbage in a jar and pour warm saltwater over it; let it stand for two weeks.

  3. Remove the cabbage and place it on a cloth in the sun for several hours.

  4. Return the cabbage to the jar and cover it with plain cold vinegar; let it stand for three to four weeks.

  5. Pour off the vinegar and mix in small onions, celery seed, mustard seed, sliced horseradish, and green or red pepper.

  6. Scald cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace in a quart of vinegar for a few minutes, then pour over the cabbage.

  7. Fill the jar with cold vinegar.

  8. Mix plain vinegar with enough turmeric to color the cabbage, then add the spiced vinegar.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  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

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, vinegar, onion, celery, mustard, horseradish, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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