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India Pickle

A preserved vegetable mixture of cauliflower, ginger, horseradish, garlic, long pepper, shallots, onions, and vinegar, aged in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

India Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In July, cut cauliflowers into small pieces and wash them.

  2. Place them in a pan and cover with coarse sea salt for three days.

  3. Drain and lay them out to dry in the sun, turning them until they are brown, which may take several days.

  4. Soak ginger, horseradish, garlic, long pepper, shallots, and onions in salt water overnight, then drain and dry.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the ingredients, adding 1 ounce of pale turmeric for every 2 quarts.

  2. Place the dried ingredients in stone jars and pour the boiling vinegar over them.

  3. Cover the jars until the next day, then boil the pickle again for two more days.

  4. Fill the jars with the liquid, seal tightly with bladder and white leather, and store in a dry place.

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. Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cauliflower + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Large fresh cauliflowers
Salted and sun-dried until brown, they form the firm, dense bulk of the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the vegetables so they dry and keep better.
Vinegar
Acidic liquid that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavour.
Pale turmeric
Adds yellow colour and an earthy, slightly bitter aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Drying the cauliflower in the sun until brown. Drying removes surface moisture so the vinegar penetrates less diluted and the pickle keeps longer. Turning ensures even drying, and under-drying leaves moisture that can spoil the jars.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, horseradish, garlic, pepper, shallot, onion, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, horseradish, garlic, pepper, shallot, onion, vinegar. 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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