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Fkench Pickles

Pickled green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, small cucumbers, small beans, and cauliflower in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fkench Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, small cucumbers, small beans, and cauliflower in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the vegetables and let them sit overnight.

  3. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

Make the pickling liquid and pour

  1. In a large pot, combine vinegar, celery seed, allspice, black pepper, turmeric, mustard, and brown sugar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the drained vegetables while hot.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pickled vegetables and firm bite once salted and drained.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables overnight, helping them stay crisp and preserved.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their sharp, tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor to the pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles a yellow color and an earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling mixture over the drained vegetables while hot. Hot vinegar brine penetrates the vegetables and helps seal in preservation, so the liquid should be fully boiling when poured over the drained vegetables.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, onion, beans, cauliflower, vinegar, celery):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, onion, beans, cauliflower, vinegar, celery. 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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