Skip to main content
Main

Spiced Cauliflower

A pickled cauliflower dish flavored with cinnamon, allspice, cloves, celery seed, white mustard seed, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the cauliflower as you would for pickled cauliflower.

  2. Place the cauliflower in a jar with the pepper pods, using 2 pods per quart jar or small pieces of red bell pepper.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil the vinegar, sugar, and spices together for 30 minutes.

  2. While hot, pour the mixture over the cauliflower until covered, then seal the jar.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm vegetable base that absorbs the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cayenne pepper pods
Adds heat that infuses into the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon sticks
Adds warm aroma to the pickling liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the cauliflower. The liquid must be boiling hot when poured so the vegetables soften slightly and absorb the flavours; sealing the jar while it is still hot helps the lid form a seal as it cools.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, pepper, allspice, vinegar, mustard, sugar, clove. 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 pickled cauliflower recipes

Spiced 3 See all 97 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipes