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Pickled Cauliflower

Pickled cauliflower preserved in a vinegar, sugar, mustard, and salt brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pickled Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Place cauliflower heads in a jar, sprinkle with salt, add enough cold water to cover, and let stand overnight.

  2. Wash cauliflower and remove any outside leaves without breaking them apart.

  3. Steam cauliflower for about 15 minutes until slightly tender; test with a fork, being careful not to overcook.

  4. Let cauliflower cool, separate pieces along natural divisions, and place them in glass jars.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a granite kettle, bring vinegar to a boil. Add sugar and then mustard, which should be mixed smooth with a little cold vinegar. Stir until thickened.

  2. If mixture is lumpy, strain through a wire sieve. While hot, pour enough of this mixture over cauliflower to cover, then seal the 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. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp-tender vegetable body that holds the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Yellow ground mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps thicken the pickling liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cauliflower during the overnight soak, firming its texture.

The step that matters

Steaming the cauliflower. Steam only until slightly tender, because overcooked cauliflower softens and turns mushy in the vinegar brine, losing the crisp bite that makes the pickle pleasant.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sugar, 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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