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Mixed Mustard Pickle

A pickle made with cucumbers, onions, green tomatoes, beans, mangoes, vinegar, sugar, mustard, turmeric, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and beans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Mixed Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers, onions, small onions, green tomatoes, green beans, butter beans, and mangoes in salt water overnight.

  2. Steam the green beans and small onions until tender.

Make the pickle

  1. In a large pot, combine vinegar, water, sugar, mustard, turmeric, and flour.

  2. Add butter and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in the soaked vegetables and boil for 30 minutes or until tender.

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. Green beans + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together95 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture so it becomes a smooth, coating sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the sauce's sharp edge.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma.
French mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps season the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the soaked vegetables and boil for 30 minutes or until tender. Flour thickens the sauce only when it is kept at a full boil while stirred; if the mixture is not stirred or boiled long enough, flour can clump or taste raw, and the vegetables may stay firm or the sauce may scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, tomato, green beans, butter, beans, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, tomato, green beans, butter, beans, vinegar. 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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