Skip to main content
Main

India Pickle

A pickle of cauliflower, spices, and vinegar preserved in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Wash the cauliflower pieces.

  2. Place the cauliflower pieces in a pan with coarse sea salt.

  3. Leave the pan for three days.

  4. Drain the cauliflower.

  5. Lay the cauliflower out in the sun to dry, turning it frequently until it is almost brown.

  6. Soak the ginger, horseradish, garlic, long pepper, shallots, and onions in saltwater overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil vinegar until it covers the ingredients.

  2. Add 1 ounce of pale turmeric for every 2 quarts of vinegar.

  3. Place the dried cauliflower and other ingredients into stone jars.

  4. Pour the boiling vinegar over the contents of the jars.

  5. Cover the jars.

  6. Let the jars sit until the next day.

  7. Boil the pickle again.

  8. Repeat the process for a third day.

  9. Fill the jars with vinegar.

  10. Cover the jars tightly with bladder and white leather.

  11. Store the jars 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

Cauliflower
Forms the bulk of the pickle and, once salted and dried, keeps its crisp texture in the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cauliflower, which helps it dry and firm before it goes into the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, its acidity keeping the vegetables stable in the jars.
Pale turmeric
Adds a yellow color and an earthy, slightly bitter flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Drying the cauliflower in the sun. Turning it frequently until almost brown removes surface moisture so the pieces stay firm and do not dilute the vinegar. Too little drying leaves excess water that weakens the pickle.

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.

You might also like

Cauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipesCream of Cauliflower SoupCream of Cauliflower Soup22 recipesCreamed CauliflowerCreamed Cauliflower17 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipes