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 ↓
Mustard Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the vegetables
Cover the cucumbers, peppers, mangoes, onions, cauliflower, nasturtium seeds, and radish pods with strong salt water and let stand for 24 hours.
Drain well.
Make and cook the pickles
Heat the mixture slowly to boiling in a dressing made from flour, turmeric, salt, ground mustard, Coolman's mustard, and paprika dissolved in enough cold water to make a thin paste.
Pour the paste into 2 quarts of boiling cider vinegar and 1½ pints of boiling water, adding the alum.
Cook well before adding the pickles.
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.
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Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together212 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
-
Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together514 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together55 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
-
Mango + turmerictop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together256 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
- Cucumbers
- Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the mustard dressing as they cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the mustard dressing into a smooth paste that coats the pickles.
- Ground mustard
- Adds sharp, pungent flavor that defines the mustard pickle.
- Cider vinegar
- Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them tang.
- Turmeric
- Gives the pickles their yellow color and a mild earthy flavor.
- White onions
- Add sweetness and body that soften during cooking.
The step that matters
Adding the paste to the boiling vinegar. Flour-based dressings clump if poured in too quickly or unevenly. Thinning the paste with cold water first and adding it steadily to boiling liquid keeps it smooth, so the mustard thickens the pickles evenly instead of forming lumps.
Swap the mango
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, onion, cauliflower, radish, flour, turmeric):
- Limefits better
- Avocadofits better
- Lemonfits better
- Mangothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, onion, cauliflower, radish, flour, 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.
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