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To Pickle Cauliflowers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Choose the whitest cauliflowers and cut them on a dry day.

  2. Break them into small bunches and scald in saltwater without boiling.

  3. Cover and let them cool.

  4. Strain in a colander, sprinkle with a little salt, and let drain for a day and a half.

  5. Place the bunches in a jar and pour over boiling saltwater; let stand overnight.

  6. Drain through a fine sieve and transfer to glass jars.

  7. Boil the vinegar with mustard, nutmeg, ginger, mace, and coriander seed.

  8. Once cooled, pour the mixture over the cauliflowers and keep them covered.

  9. They can be used immediately but taste better if allowed to stand for a few weeks.

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + cauliflowertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + cauliflowertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Vinegar + cauliflowertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 (nutmeg, ginger, vinegar):

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

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

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