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Drink

East Indian Pickling

A pickled mixture of ginger, garlic, long pepper, mustard seed, turmeric, mustard, and cayenne in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

East Indian Pickling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger and garlic

  1. Soak the ginger in water overnight.

  2. Cut the ginger into thin slices and dry on a clean sieve.

  3. Slice the long pepper as you did the ginger.

  4. Soak the garlic in strong brine for three days, then dry it like the ginger.

  5. Mash or slice the garlic.

Make the spice mixture

  1. In a mortar, combine mustard seed, turmeric, made mustard, and Cayenne pepper.

Pickle and store

  1. In a large stone jar, mix all prepared ingredients with the vinegar.

  2. Stir well and often for two weeks, then cover tightly.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + turmerictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw ginger
Provides the main pungent flavor and firm texture that holds up during pickling.
Garlic
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that mellows as it sits in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid, preserving the ingredients and giving them acidity.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungency and a sharp, slightly bitter bite to the pickle.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and helps bind the spices into the pickling mixture.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy, warm aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring the jar well and often for two weeks. Regular stirring keeps the vegetables and spices evenly exposed to the vinegar, so the pickle softens and flavours uniformly rather than spoiling or tasting patchy at the top.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, garlic, mustard, turmeric, vinegar):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, garlic, mustard, turmeric, vinegar. 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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