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Fine Spanish Pickle

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and spices, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fine Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Sprinkle cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions with salt and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Pour water over the vegetables and wash out the brine.

Make the pickles

  1. Mix horseradish, turmeric, mustard, cinnamon, celery seed, and brown sugar into a paste with vinegar.

  2. Add enough vinegar to cover all the pickles.

  3. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and boil on the stove until tender.

  4. Put the pickles in jars and seal.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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 crisp-textured bulk of the pickle once cooked and salted.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body to the pickle mixture.
White onions
Add savoury flavour and soft texture to the vegetables.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's acidity.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and sharpens the flavour.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Wash out the brine. Rinsing off the salt after the 24-hour standing period controls the final saltiness. Leftover brine would make the pickle overly salty and can keep the vegetables from absorbing the spiced vinegar evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, pepper, horseradish, turmeric, mustard, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, pepper, horseradish, turmeric, mustard, cinnamon. 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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