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Indian Pickle

A pickle made from ginger, garlic, long pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, celery, beans, elder shoots, apples, cucumbers, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and radish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Indian Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger and garlic

  1. Soak the ginger in water overnight.

  2. Scrape the ginger.

  3. Slice the ginger.

  4. Salt the ginger in a pan until ready.

  5. Salt the garlic for three days.

  6. Slice the garlic.

  7. Dry the garlic.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Salt the long pepper.

  2. Dry the long pepper.

  3. Quarter the small white cabbages.

  4. Salt the cabbages for three days.

  5. Squeeze the cabbages.

  6. Dry the cabbages in the sun.

  7. Cut cauliflower into branches.

  8. Remove the greens from radishes.

  9. Cut celery into three-inch lengths.

  10. Keep young French beans whole.

  11. Slice or quarter apples and cucumbers, ensuring they are not too large.

  12. Salt all vegetables except apples and cucumbers.

  13. Drain all vegetables except apples and cucumbers.

  14. Dry all vegetables except apples and cucumbers in the sun.

  15. Pour boiling vinegar over apples and cucumbers.

  16. Drain apples and cucumbers after twelve hours.

Pack and pickle

  1. In a large stone jar, combine the spices, mustard seed, and enough vinegar for the quantity of vegetables.

  2. Add turmeric.

  3. Prepare for the vegetables.

  4. Place some vegetables in a two-quart stone jar.

  5. Pour one quart of boiling vinegar over them.

  6. Remove the vegetables.

  7. Drain the vegetables.

  8. Place them in a large stock jar.

  9. Boil the vinegar.

  10. Pour boiled vinegar over more vegetables.

  11. Let the vegetables sit overnight.

  12. Repeat the previous steps until all vegetables are cleansed from dust.

  13. For every gallon of vinegar, mix in two ounces of mustard flour gradually with a little boiling hot vinegar.

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. Cauliflower + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + radishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Salting and drying draw out moisture, concentrating its sharp flavour in the pickle.
Cabbages
Salting and squeezing firm the leaves and remove water so they stay crisp in the vinegar.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and sharpens the overall flavour of the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and aroma that develops as the seeds steep in the vinegar.
Mustard flour
Mixed into the vinegar to thicken it and add sharp mustard pungency.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the mustard flour to the vinegar. Mustard flour can clump if added all at once, so it must be mixed in gradually with a little hot vinegar to blend smoothly and evenly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, celery, beans):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, celery, beans. 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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