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Mustard Pickle

A pickled cucumber and vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, sugar, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine small cucumbers, sliced large cucumbers, small onions, cauliflower, green peppers, and green tomatoes in a large bowl.

  2. Cover with salt and water, and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Heat the mixture until it reaches a scalding point, then drain through a colander.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix mustard, sugar, flour, and turmeric with a small amount of vinegar until smooth.

  2. Stir in the remaining vinegar and cook over a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened.

Combine and can

  1. Combine the pickles with the mustard paste and mix well.

  2. The mustard pickle is now ready to can.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Cucumbers
Provide the main crisp vegetable body of the pickle.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce so it coats the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens their taste.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness with sweetness.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their yellow color and earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Cook the mustard sauce while stirring constantly. Flour-thickened sauces can scorch or form lumps if left unstirred over heat. Cooking gently in a double boiler and stirring steadily keeps the paste smooth so it thickens evenly before being combined with the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, tomato, mustard, sugar, flour):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, tomato, mustard, sugar, flour. 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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