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Preserve

Pickles, India

A preserved vegetable mixture using ginger, garlic, long pepper, cabbage, celery, beans, apples, cucumbers, mustard seed, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,556 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Pickles, India

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger and garlic

  1. Soak ginger in water overnight.

  2. Scrape and slice the ginger, then lay the sliced ginger in salt until ready.

  3. Peel, slice, and salt the garlic, then let the garlic sit for three days.

  4. Dry the garlic in the sun.

Prepare the long pepper and cabbage

  1. Salt the long pepper and let it sit for three days.

  2. Dry the long pepper in the sun.

  3. Quarter the small white cabbages and salt them for three days.

  4. Squeeze the cabbages and dry them in the sun.

Prepare the other vegetables

  1. Cut celery and French beans into 3-inch lengths.

  2. Slice or quarter the apples and cucumbers.

  3. Salt all vegetables except apples and cucumbers, then drain the salted vegetables.

  4. Dry the salted vegetables in the sun.

  5. Pour boiling vinegar over the apples and cucumbers, then drain them after 12 hours.

Pickle in jars

  1. Combine spices, garlic, mustard seed, and enough vinegar for pickling in a large stone jar.

  2. Place some ready vegetables in a 2-quart stone jar and pour 1 quart of boiling vinegar over them.

  3. The next day, remove the vegetables from the jar and drain them.

  4. Repeat the process with more vegetables until all are pickled.

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. Garlic + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beans + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 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

What each ingredient does

White ginger
Adds its sharp, pungent flavor to the pickle.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and flavor that deepens as it cures.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and aroma to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a mild, earthy flavor.
Cabbages
Salting and drying firm up the cabbage so it stays crisp in the brine.

The step that matters

Salting and sun-drying the vegetables. Salt draws moisture out of the vegetables, and drying removes more water. Less water means the pickle stays crisp and the vinegar brine is not diluted, which helps it keep.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, garlic, pepper, cabbage, celery, beans, cucumber):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, garlic, pepper, cabbage, celery, beans, cucumber. 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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