Skip to main content
Drink

French Pickles

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and spices, preserved in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

French Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine the sliced green tomatoes, cucumbers, sliced onions, and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

Make the pickle and store

  1. Add the celery seed, allspice, white mustard seed, black pepper, turmeric, brown sugar, mustard, and vinegar.

  2. Mix well and store in jars.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar brine.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture and bulk to the pickle.
Sliced onions
Add pungency and savory flavor that mellows during standing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor to the brine.

The step that matters

Salting and standing the vegetables for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions through osmosis. Draining this liquid off before adding the vinegar keeps the pickle crisper and stops it from becoming watery and diluted.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, celery, allspice, mustard, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipes