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Mixed Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix with cucumbers, onions, beans, tomatoes, cabbage, celery, mango, muskmelon, spices, sugar, mustard, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Layer all vegetables in a stone jar, sprinkle with salt, and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the brine and transfer the vegetables to a porcelain kettle.

Make the pickle

  1. Add turmeric, mustard seed, celery seed, allspice, and whole cloves to the kettle.

  2. In a bowl, mix brown sugar, ground mustard, and flour into a smooth paste with cider vinegar.

  3. Combine the paste with the vegetables and add enough vinegar to barely cover them.

  4. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

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 + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cucumber + cabbagetop 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the paste so it clings to the vegetables rather than pooling.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during simmering.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow color and earthy aroma.
Mustard seed
Contributes sharp, nutty flavor that softens as the pickle cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the paste into the vegetables while simmering. Flour-thickened mixtures scorch and stick to the bottom of the kettle over heat. Constant stirring during the 30-minute simmer keeps the paste evenly dispersed and prevents burning.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, lima beans, tomato, cauliflower, cabbage, celery):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, lima beans, tomato, cauliflower, cabbage, celery. 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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