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Mixed Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine different vegetables in a bowl.

  2. Make a brine with salt and water that can float an egg, then pour it over the vegetables and let them sit for 2 days.

  3. Place cabbage leaves in the bottom of a pan, add the vegetables and brine, and heat until hot but not boiling.

  4. Remove the vegetables, drain them, and return them to the pot on fresh cabbage leaves.

  5. Cover the vegetables with equal parts vinegar and water, sprinkle with salt, and cover with cabbage leaves.

  6. Cover with a lid and keep warm until the vegetables turn green, but do not boil.

  7. Drain the vegetables, bottle them, and pour over vinegar boiled with sliced ginger, mace, mustard seeds, and peppercorns.

  8. Cork and seal the bottles.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, cucumber, cauliflower, onion, vinegar, ginger, mustard):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, cucumber, cauliflower, onion, vinegar, ginger, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More mixed pickles recipes

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