Skip to main content
Main

Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, beans, melon, mango, celery, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and lima beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cucumbers, green tomatoes, cauliflower, and string beans in salt water overnight.

Make the pickles

  1. Add the musk melon, cooked Lima beans, red pepper, mangoes, celery, small onions, nasturtium seeds, mixed spices, and cinnamon bark to the soaked vegetables and mix all ingredients together.

  2. Add 4 cups of sugar to 1 quart of vinegar, then cook the mixture in the vinegar for 30 minutes.

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. Beans + lima beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  4. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Green tomatoes
Adds bulk and a tart, firm body that holds its shape during cooking.
Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, fresh-textured bulk of the pickle mixture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Mangoes
Add fruity sweetness and softer texture to the mixed vegetables.

The step that matters

Soaking the vegetables in salt water overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables by osmosis, firming them and reducing excess moisture so they stay crisp rather than turning soft and watery in the vinegar.

Swap the musk melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, beans, lima beans, pepper, mango):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Musk melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, beans, lima beans, pepper, mango. 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 mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes