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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, onions, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers in a mustard‑flavored brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Place the small cucumbers, large cucumbers, onions, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and green peppers in weak brine for 24 hours.

  2. Scald the vegetables in the same brine.

  3. Drain the vegetables.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, ground mustard, turmeric, and flour in a pot.

  2. Cook until it comes to a boil.

Combine and seal

  1. Add the drained vegetables to the pot.

  2. Bring everything to a boil again.

  3. Seal the mixture in jars.

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 pickled vegetable body and crisp texture after brining.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and a firm, crunchy texture that holds up to the sauce.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Ground mustard
Gives the sauce its characteristic sharp, pungent flavor.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar sauce so it clings to the vegetables.

The step that matters

Bring everything to a boil again after adding the vegetables. The flour-thickened sauce must be heated long enough to cook out its raw starch taste and thicken evenly; stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

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