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Mustard Picxles

A pickled vegetable mixture of green tomatoes, small onions, cauliflower, cucumbers, string beans, mustard, vinegar, turmeric, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 514 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mustard Picxles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the green tomatoes.

  2. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces.

  3. Salt the vegetables and let them sit overnight.

  4. Drain the vegetables thoroughly.

Cook and bottle

  1. Mix the mustard with a little vinegar.

  2. When the vinegar boils, add all the vegetables.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Bottle the mixture 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. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Mustard + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the brine's flavor as they soften.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp pieces that hold their shape through the boil.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Colman's mustard
Supplies the sharp mustard flavor that defines the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables thoroughly. Salting draws out water; any moisture left behind dilutes the vinegar and mustard sauce, weakening its flavor and preservative strength.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mustard, turmeric, beans, vinegar, cauliflower, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, turmeric, beans, vinegar, cauliflower, sugar. 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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