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Indian Pickle

A jar of assorted vegetables pickled in vinegar, salt, mustard, turmeric, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a large jar for the pickle.

  2. Ensure all vegetables are perfectly dry before adding them to the jar.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add vegetables as they come into season.

  2. Tie the jar tightly after each addition of fresh vegetables.

Make the pickle liquid and store

  1. Combine vinegar, salt, mustard, turmeric, and ginger in a separate bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture over the vegetables in the jar.

  3. Let the pickle stand for a year before using, and it will improve over time.

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. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the finished pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and helps keep them firm and preserved.
Flour of mustard
Adds sharp pungency and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy, warm flavour.

The step that matters

Ensure all vegetables are perfectly dry before adding them to the jar. Water left on the vegetables dilutes the vinegar brine and can encourage spoilage during the long standing period, so the pickle may not keep well.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, cucumber, beans, turnip, radish):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, cucumber, beans, turnip, radish. 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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