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Pickled Cauliflower

A cauliflower dish pickled in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Remove the green leaves from the cauliflower.

  2. Place the cauliflower in boiling water with a good amount of coarse sea salt and boil for 3 to 5 minutes.

  3. Remove the cauliflower from the water and dip it in cold water for 1 minute.

  4. Cut the cauliflower into pieces suitable for jars.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine mace, cloves, allspice, ginger, mustard seed, and red pepper with the vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the cauliflower.

  4. Cover tightly and let it sit for one week.

Rescald and store

  1. After a week, pour off the vinegar.

  2. Scald the vinegar.

  3. Return the hot vinegar to the cauliflower.

  4. Transfer the cauliflower to jars for storage.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm vegetable base that holds its texture in the brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cauliflower and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that deepens as the seeds steep in the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cauliflower during blanching and helps firm its texture.

The step that matters

Blanching the cauliflower. Boiling for only 3 to 5 minutes softens the florets slightly while keeping them firm. Over-boiling makes them mushy, and the vinegar can then not restore their crispness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, clove, allspice, ginger, mustard, pepper, cider):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, clove, allspice, ginger, mustard, pepper, cider. 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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