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To Pickle Cauliflowers

A method of pickling cauliflowers in a mustard seed, coriander seed, mace, nutmeg, ginger, and vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Pickle Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Choose the whitest cauliflowers and cut them on a dry day.

  2. Break them into small bunches and scald them in saltwater without boiling.

  3. Cover and let them cool.

  4. Strain in a colander, sprinkle with a little salt, and let drain for a day and a half.

  5. Place the bunches in a jar and pour boiling saltwater over them; let stand overnight.

  6. Drain through a fine sieve and transfer to glass jars.

Make the pickle and finish

  1. Boil the vinegar with mustard, nutmeg, ginger, mace, and coriander seed.

  2. Once cooled, pour the mixture over the cauliflowers and keep them covered.

  3. They can be used immediately but taste better if allowed to stand for a few weeks.

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. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflowers
Form the pickle's main body, becoming crisp-tender and absorbing the spiced vinegar flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cauliflower and seasons it before pickling.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor that infuses into the vinegar.
Coriander seed
Adds warm, citrusy aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cauliflower. Draining for a day and a half removes excess water, so the pickling liquid is not diluted and the florets stay firm rather than soggy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, coriander, nutmeg, ginger, vinegar, cauliflower):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, coriander, nutmeg, ginger, vinegar, cauliflower. 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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