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Vikginia Pickle

A fermented pickle made with cucumbers, green tomatoes, onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Vikginia Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix cucumbers, green tomatoes, and onions in a large bowl.

  2. Layer the cut vegetables, sprinkling each layer generously with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 3 hours, then squeeze tightly to remove excess liquid.

Make the pickle

  1. In a large pot, combine cider vinegar, ground allspice, ground mace, white mustard, black mustard, and brown sugar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the squeezed vegetables to the boiling mixture.

  4. Stir the mixture carefully from the bottom to ensure even cooking.

  5. Boil for about 15 minutes.

  6. Add celery seed and stir.

  7. Transfer the pickle mixture into jars while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main crunchy body of the pickle.
Green tomatoes
Add firm texture and tartness that holds up to pickling.
White onions
Contribute savory flavor and aromatic sharpness to the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the vegetables so they stay firmer in the brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and depth.

The step that matters

Squeeze the salted vegetables thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If excess liquid is not removed, it dilutes the vinegar brine, weakening acidity and preservation and leaving the pickle watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, onion, cider, vinegar, allspice, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, onion, cider, vinegar, allspice, 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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