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Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of French beans, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the trimmed French beans, peeled onions, cabbage pieces, and cauliflower sprigs thoroughly.

  2. Boil the vegetables in strongly salted water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the boiled vegetables.

  4. Spread the drained vegetables on a cloth to dry in the sun.

  5. Mix the dried vegetables together.

  6. Place the mixed vegetables in stone jars.

Make the pickle liquor

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the vinegar, dry salt, ground ginger, powdered mace, bruised red chillies, mustard flour, turmeric, chopped shallots, and chopped garlic.

  2. Mix the ingredients into the vinegar while cold.

  3. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  4. Let the mixture cool completely.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour the cooled mixture over the vegetables in the jars.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

  3. Store the jars for at least 6 months before using.

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

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

  2. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Dry salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and helps preserve the pickle against spoilage.
Mustard flour
Adds sharp pungency and helps flavour the pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild earthy flavour.
Red chillies
Add heat and pungency to the pickling liquid.
Shallots
Add savoury depth and mild sweetness to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cooling the liquor before pouring. The mixture must cool completely before it is poured over the vegetables. Pouring hot liquid over the vegetables would soften them and can cause the vegetables to cook rather than stay crisp, so the liquid is cooled first.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, vinegar, ginger, mustard):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, vinegar, ginger, mustard. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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