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Spanish Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cabbage, mangoes, cucumbers, onions, mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, brown sugar, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Squeeze out all juice from the chopped green tomatoes before mixing.

Combine and cover

  1. Combine the tomatoes, cabbage, mangoes, cucumbers, onions, mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, brown sugar, and coarse sea salt in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well and cover the mixture with vinegar.

Cook

  1. Cook for 30 minutes after it begins to boil.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickle, though their juice must be removed to avoid excess liquid.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds its shape during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables, helping them soften and release liquid.

The step that matters

Squeeze out the tomato juice. Green tomatoes release a lot of liquid. Removing it first keeps the pickle from becoming watery and helps the vegetables stay firmer and more concentrated in flavor.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cabbage, cucumber, onion, mustard, celery, turmeric):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cabbage, cucumber, onion, mustard, celery, turmeric. 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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