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Pickles, Vinegar, &C

A pickled vegetable mix of gherkins, French beans, and radish pods in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Pickles, Vinegar, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Gather gherkins, French beans, and radish pods when dry; remove blossoms and stalks.

  2. Sprinkle a handful of coarse sea salt over the vegetables and stir until wet.

  3. The next day, drain the vegetables in a colander and place them in jars.

Pickle and heat

  1. Boil the vinegar and pour it over the vegetables to cover them.

  2. Let the jars sit away from heat for 3-4 days.

  3. Transfer the vinegar and pickles to a saucepan, cover with vine leaves, and heat gradually until they simmer, replacing leaves as they turn yellow.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Gherkins (in the method)
Main vegetable; firm flesh holds its crunch through pickling and absorbs the brine.
French beans (in the method)
Main vegetable; a firm texture that stays crisp-tender in the acidic brine.
Radish pods
Main vegetable; crisp texture that softens slightly while taking on the pickling flavours.
Black peppercorns
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that flavours the pickling liquid.
Mustard flour
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Heating the pickles in the saucepan. Heating gradually and only until the liquid simmers keeps the vegetables firm; overheating or boiling them hard softens their cell walls and turns them limp.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, flour, turmeric, ginger, pepper, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, flour, turmeric, ginger, pepper, clove. 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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