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To Pickle Cauliflowers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select the closest and whitest cauliflower heads.

  2. Pull them into bunches and spread on an earthen dish.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the cauliflower and let it stand for 3 days to draw out water.

  4. Place the cauliflower in earthen jars and pour boiling salt water over them.

  5. Let them sit overnight, then drain on a fine sieve.

  6. Transfer to glass jars and fill with vinegar, sealing tightly with leather.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cauliflower + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together105 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

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

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, allspice, ginger, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, ginger, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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