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Indian Pickle

A pickle made from various vegetables preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 1 pound white ginger in water overnight. Scrape, slice, and salt it in a pan until ready.

  2. Salt and slice 1 pound garlic. Let it dry in the sun for three days.

  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 cauliflowers into branches, remove greens from radishes, and cut celery into three‑inch lengths.

  6. Slice or quarter apples and cucumbers, ensuring they are not too large.

  7. Salt, drain, and dry all vegetables in the sun, except apples and cucumbers.

  8. Pour boiling vinegar over apples and cucumbers, drain after 12 hours without adding salt.

Pack and preserve

  1. In a large stone jar, combine spices, garlic, ¼ pound mustard seed, and enough vinegar for the quantity of vegetables.

  2. When vegetables are ready, place some in a 2‑quart stone jar and pour 1 quart of boiling vinegar over them.

  3. The next day, remove the vegetables and place them in a large stock jar, pouring boiling vinegar over more vegetables.

  4. Repeat this process until all vegetables are cleaned and preserved.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Salting and sun-drying concentrates its flavour and helps it keep in the pickle.
White cabbages
Salting and squeezing draws out water, leaving firmer pieces that take up the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that stands up to the vinegar.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sour bite.

The step that matters

Drying the vegetables in the sun. Salting and drying remove water before the vinegar is added. Wet vegetables dilute the brine and can spoil, so they must be dry enough to keep well.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, pepper, 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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