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Mustard Pickle

A cucumber pickle flavored with mustard, ginger, turmeric, pepper, and olive oil, preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Combine chopped cucumbers and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Let sit for 24 hours.

  3. Press out the salt water.

  4. Boil cucumbers in fresh water until very tender.

  5. Drain and dry.

Prepare the onions

  1. Slice onions.

  2. Boil onions until tender.

  3. Mix onions with cucumbers.

Make the pickle

  1. Add mustard, ginger, turmeric, pepper, and olive oil to the cucumber mixture.

  2. Cover with vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil.

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

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

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 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

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the pickle and, once salted and cooked, a tender, crisp-soft texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming them before they are cooked.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory body that softens and blends into the pickle.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the pickle a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pressing out the salt water. Salt draws moisture out of the cucumbers. If the salt water is not pressed out well, the pickle stays watery and the seasoning becomes uneven and overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, ginger, turmeric, pepper, olive, 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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