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Mustard Pickle

A pickled vegetable mixture of cucumbers, cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, and peppers flavored with mustard, turmeric, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the cucumbers, cabbage, green tomatoes, small onions, and green peppers.

  2. Make a brine with 1 pint of coarse sea salt and 4 quarts of water.

  3. Soak the chopped vegetables in the brine for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the vegetables through a colander and cook them briefly.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of turmeric, and 4 teaspoons of dry mustard with enough cold vinegar to form a paste.

  2. Add 1 cup of sugar and enough vinegar to make a total of 2 quarts.

  3. Boil this mixture until thick.

  4. Add the drained vegetables to the thickened mixture and boil for a few minutes.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Give the pickle its crisp, fresh-bodied texture and bulk.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a crisp bite that holds up through cooking.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and firm body that stands up to the thick sauce.
Flour
Thickens the mustard sauce as it boils, giving the pickle its body.
Dry mustard
Provides the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the mustard pickle.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and sweetens the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the mustard paste. Flour and dry mustard must be mixed smoothly with cold vinegar before heating, because raw starch clumps if it hits hot liquid directly. Once the sauce is boiled, the starch swells and thickens it evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, onion, pepper, flour, turmeric, mustard. 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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