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French Pickles

A pickled cauliflower dish seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cover cauliflower with 1 pint of coarse sea salt and let sit overnight.

  2. Drain the liquid in the morning.

  3. Boil tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables in 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Drain the mixture in a colander.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. In a kettle, combine 7 pints of vinegar, 2 pounds of brown sugar, white mustard seed, allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, ground mustard, and cayenne.

  2. Boil for 15-20 minutes, stirring carefully to avoid burning.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp body of the pickle after salting.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cauliflower, firming its texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the pickling liquor while it boils. Sugar-rich liquids scorch easily on the bottom of a kettle. Constant, careful stirring keeps the sugar from burning and sticking, which would give a bitter taste.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger, cinnamon):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, allspice, clove, ginger, cinnamon. 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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