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Indian Pickle

A preserved mixture of ginger, garlic, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, celery, beans, elder shoots, apples, cucumbers, and spices soaked in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and radish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak ginger in water overnight, then scrape, slice, and salt it in a pan until ready.

  2. Peel, slice, and salt garlic for three days, then dry it in the sun.

  3. Salt and dry long pepper in the same way.

  4. Quarter small white cabbages, salt for three days, squeeze, and dry in the sun.

  5. Cut cauliflower into branches, remove greens from radishes, and cut celery into three-inch lengths.

  6. Prepare young French beans whole and elder shoots, then dry them in the sun.

  7. Slice or quarter apples and cucumbers, pour boiling vinegar over them, and drain after twelve hours without using salt.

Pack and pickle

  1. In a large stone jar, combine the spices, garlic, mustard seed, and enough vinegar for the vegetables.

  2. Once the vegetables are dried, layer them in a two-quart stone jar and pour one quart of boiling vinegar over them.

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. Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + radishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

White ginger
Adds pungent, aromatic flavour that carries through the pickling vinegar.
Garlic
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that mellows as it dries and steeps in the vinegar.
Small white cabbages
Forms the crisp, sturdy bulk of the pickle, firmed by salting and drying.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite and a characteristic seasoned flavour.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, adding acidity that keeps the vegetables stable.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its golden colour and a warm, earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables in the sun before packing. Salting and sun-drying remove water from the vegetables. If they are packed damp, extra moisture dilutes the vinegar and can let the pickle spoil or soften.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, garlic, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, celery, beans. 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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