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To Pickle Cauliflowers

A method for pickling cauliflowers using salt, vinegar, and spices such as coriander, turmeric, mustard seed, ginger, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger 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 ↓

To Pickle Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Cut cauliflowers before they are too blown on a dry day.

  2. Strip off the leaves and quarter the stalk.

  3. Scald them in salt and water without boiling.

  4. Cover to cool and retain color.

Salt and drain

  1. Sprinkle with salt and water, then drain in a colander for 24 hours.

  2. When dry, cut out the thick stalk or divide it if large.

  3. Boil the stalk and split the flower into 8 or 10 pieces.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place pieces in jars and cover with cold vinegar boiled with spices.

  2. Alternatively, boil cauliflowers in salt and vinegar, then immediately transfer to cold vinegar boiled with spices.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Coriander + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflowers
Forms the firm, crisp pickled pieces that hold their texture in the brine.
Cold vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the cauliflower and balances the spices.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a warm, earthy flavor.
Coriander seed
Contributes a citrusy, aromatic note to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that carries into the vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scald without boiling. Boiling the cauliflower would soften it and wash out color, so it should only be scalded, then cooled quickly to keep it firm and bright.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, vinegar, coriander, turmeric, mustard, ginger):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, vinegar, coriander, turmeric, mustard, ginger. 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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