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Hot Pickle

A spicy pickle made by boiling vinegar with spices, then adding vegetables or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hot Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickling liquor

  1. Boil the vinegar with the salt, shallots or garlic, ginger, white pepper, yellow mustard seed, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour the hot mixture into a 4-quart jar and add the allspice.

Pickle and top up

  1. Once the mixture is cold, add any fresh vegetables or fruit.

  2. Replenish the pickle with the same mixture as it depletes.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the liquor and helps draw moisture and flavour into the pickled produce.
Yellow mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that mellows as the pickle stands.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that builds in the liquor over time.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the vegetables or fruit. Adding produce to hot liquor softens it and can cook it unevenly, leaving a limp texture. Cooling the liquor first keeps the vegetables or fruit firm and crisp.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, shallot, ginger, mustard, pepper, allspice, asparagus):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, shallot, ginger, mustard, pepper, allspice, asparagus. 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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