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Persian Pickles

A pickled mixture of green tomatoes, onions, green beans, cauliflower, nasturtium seeds, and spices in vinegar and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 514 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Persian Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the onions, beans, and cauliflower separately.

  2. Soak the nasturtium seeds and green tomatoes in brine for 24 hours.

Make the pickling sauce

  1. Heat the vinegar in a pot.

  2. Mix the turmeric and ground mustard with a little cold vinegar, then add the mixture to the hot vinegar.

  3. Stir with a wooden spoon until thick.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Green beans + cauliflowertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + green beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent flavor and helps thicken the sauce as it is stirred.
Mustard seeds
Contribute a sharp, pungent flavor and crunch to the pickles.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Green tomatoes
Form the firm, tart body of the pickle.

The step that matters

Stir with a wooden spoon until thick. The sauce thickens as the mustard and turmeric mixture cooks into the hot vinegar. Stopping too early leaves it thin, and overheating can scorch it, so the cook must watch the texture closely while stirring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, green beans, cauliflower, cider, vinegar, sugar, turmeric):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, green beans, cauliflower, cider, vinegar, sugar, turmeric. 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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