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Hotch Potch Pickle

A fermented vegetable pickle made with cabbage, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, corn, beans, onions, peppers, horseradish, spices, sugar, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hotch Potch Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the vegetables into small pieces and sprinkle with coarse sea salt, then let sit for a few hours.

  2. Squeeze the vegetables to remove excess salt and water.

Make the spice paste

  1. Mix ¼ pound of good mustard with enough pure sweet oil to make a paste.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons each of mace, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, celery seed, red pepper, black pepper, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 ounce turmeric, and ½ pound white mustard seed.

Pack and cook

  1. Place the vegetables in a stone jar.

  2. Add the spice mixture and enough vinegar to cover the vegetables.

  3. Place the jar in a kettle of cold water.

  4. Bring to a boil for one hour.

  5. After boiling, add the turmeric and mustard seed.

  6. Add more vinegar if necessary.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and holds its crisp texture during long cooking.
Cucumbers
Adds crunch and moisture to the mixed vegetables.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and carries the spice flavours.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavour and texture to the pickle.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Squeezing the salted vegetables. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If they are not squeezed well, excess salt and water remain, which can make the pickle too salty and watery and dilute the vinegar's preserving effect.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, tomato, corn, beans, pepper, horseradish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, tomato, corn, beans, pepper, horseradish. 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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