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Chopped Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix of cabbage, onions, green tomatoes, green peppers, mustard, cloves, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chopped Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop equal quantities of cabbage, onions, and green tomatoes, and ¼ of the quantity of green peppers.

  2. Layer the vegetables and coarse sea salt alternately in a stone jar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 4 to 5 hours, then drain well.

Pickle

  1. Pour diluted vinegar over the vegetables and let it stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, ensure the vinegar covers the vegetables.

  3. Add 5 tablespoons of mustard, 1 tablespoon of cloves, and 1 tablespoon of celery seed in a muslin bag.

  4. Heat the mixture to a boiling point and pour it over the vegetables, ensuring they are well covered.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and keeps a crisp, chopped texture.
Green tomatoes
Adds tartness and body to the chopped vegetable mass.
Onions
Contributes savoury flavour and aroma to the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Diluted vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and a sharp, warm bite to the pickle.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt stand. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. Draining them well removes that liquid so the pickle stays crisp and the vinegar is not diluted further.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, tomato, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, tomato, pepper, vinegar, mustard, celery. 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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