Skip to main content
Drink

Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and red peppers in cider vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook the green tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions in salt and water until tender, but not too tender.

  2. Drain off the water and mix the vegetables well.

Make the pickle and seal

  1. In a pot, combine the cider vinegar, brown sugar, mixed spices, and sliced red peppers.

  2. Heat the mixture until hot, then seal it.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Make up the bulk of the pickle and provide a firm, tart texture.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and fresh body to the pickle.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the mixed vegetables.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and depth.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables until tender, but not too tender. Cooking softens the vegetables so they absorb the vinegar syrup, but overcooking turns them mushy. Stopping at tender keeps them firm enough to hold their shape in the jar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, cider, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, cider, vinegar, sugar, pepper. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesApple CiderApple Cider11 recipes