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Mustard Pickles

Pickled cauliflower, onions, and cucumbers in a mustard‑turmeric‑curry‑ginger‑cayenne brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Inspect the cauliflower, onions, and cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle 1 cup of salt between layers of vegetables in a large container.

  3. Cover with boiling water and let stand overnight.

  4. Drain through a colander and wipe the vegetables dry.

Make the pickling sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix ½ pound mustard, 1 tablespoon turmeric, 2½ tablespoons curry powder, 2 tablespoons ginger, and 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper with a little cold vinegar until smooth.

  2. Stir this mixture into ½ gallon hot cider vinegar and keep stirring until it scalds.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles, stir once or twice over the next couple of days, then store in glass 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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the firm, crisp bulk of the pickle once salted and pickled.
Small onions
Add crisp texture and mild sweetness that softens slightly in the vinegar.
Small cucumbers
Contribute crunch and absorb the tangy, spiced vinegar brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharpness.
Dry mustard
Adds pungent heat and flavor that thickens and colors the pickling sauce.
Turmeric
Gives the pickling sauce its bright yellow color and earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the mustard paste into hot vinegar. Dry mustard can clump and turn lumpy if it is added to hot liquid without first being smoothed in cold vinegar. Mixing it smooth first lets it disperse evenly, and keeping the mixture stirred as it scalds prevents the spices from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, cucumber, cider, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, ginger):

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cucumber, cider, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, ginger. 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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