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Mixed Pickles

A mixture of assorted vegetables pickled in a sweet, spicy, and tangy brine.

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

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine raw cabbage, boiled beets, sugar, salt, red pepper, and grated horseradish in a large bowl. Cover the mixture with cold vinegar and keep it sealed from air.

  2. In another bowl, mix cucumbers, green peppers, cauliflower, white cabbage, onions, grated horseradish, green beans, and green tomatoes. Soak this mixture in a strong brine for 24 hours. Drain the mixture for 3 hours.

Season and cook

  1. Sprinkle in the black and white mustard seeds and black ground pepper. Add just enough vinegar to cover the mixture and a little alum. Bring the mixture to a boil. Drain the mixture again. Let the mixture cool.

Finish

  1. Mix in the ground mustard. Cover the mixture with cider vinegar. Add turmeric for color if desired.

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. Horseradish + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  4. Horseradish + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raw cabbage
Provides crisp texture that holds up through long soaking in vinegar and brine.
Boiled beets
Adds color and a mild sweetness to the pickled mixture.
Cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh body to the mixed pickles.
Onions
Add pungent flavor that mellows during brining and cooking.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and firm texture that holds its shape in the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Draining after the brine soak. Thorough draining removes excess salt and liquid so the vegetables stay crisp and the final pickle is not overly salty or watery once vinegar is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, sugar, pepper, horseradish, cucumber, cauliflower, green beans. 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

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