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French Pickle

A pickled mixture of cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, green peppers, dill pickles, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, and green peppers very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped vegetables together.

  3. Place the mixture in a large stone jar.

  4. Sprinkle coarse sea salt alternately over the mixture.

  5. Let it stand overnight.

  6. Press out all the water until dry.

Pickle and steep

  1. Add the chopped dill pickles and minced garlic.

  2. Cover with cold vinegar.

  3. Let it sit for 24 hours.

Make the spiced liquid and seal

  1. In a porcelain kettle, combine fresh vinegar, brown sugar, whole cloves, ground cinnamon, and the bag of allspice.

  2. Add white mustard seed, grated ginger, turmeric in a bag, celery seed, curry powder, ground black pepper, ground mustard, olive oil, and grated horseradish.

  3. Boil the ingredients in the vinegar.

  4. Pour the hot liquid over the pickles.

  5. Cover closely to keep the steam in.

  6. Put everything in a kettle.

  7. Let it boil for ten minutes.

  8. Seal in small 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + dilltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cabbage + dilltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 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

Cabbage
Provides the bulk and crisp texture that holds up after pickling.
Green tomatoes
Adds tartness and body to the chopped vegetable mass.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, concentrating them and firming their texture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Ground mustard
Contributes pungent heat and sharpness to the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Press out all the water until dry. Salting draws out moisture, but any water left in the vegetables dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickle, so the mixture must be pressed as dry as possible before the vinegar is added.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, dill, garlic, vinegar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, onion, pepper, dill, garlic, vinegar. 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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