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Indian Pickle: a Very Convenient Pickle for Family Use

A quick, family-friendly Indian pickle made with assorted vegetables and a vinegar-based brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Indian Pickle: a Very Convenient Pickle for Family Use

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare the vegetables by cutting and cleaning them as described.

  2. Make a strong brine that can float an egg and boil the vegetables in it for one minute.

  3. Drain and dry the vegetables using a soft cloth.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Boil the vinegar with ginger, long pepper, black peppercorns, and garlic for five minutes.

  2. Mix turmeric and mustard flour with a little cold vinegar, then stir into the boiling vinegar.

Pack and store

  1. Combine the vegetables thoroughly and place them in an unglazed jar.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar over the vegetables to completely cover them.

  3. Cover the jar tightly and store in a cool place.

  4. Add seasonal vegetables, boiling and drying them before adding to the jar.

  5. If the vinegar is absorbed, add more boiled and cooled vinegar to cover.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beetroot + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 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

Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid that keeps the vegetables acidic and covered in the jar.
Cauliflowers
Provide the bulk of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar as they sit.
Mustard flour
Adds sharp pungency and helps give the vinegar its warm, hot flavour.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour and earthy flavour.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Covering the vegetables with boiling vinegar. Vegetables must stay fully submerged in acidic liquid, or they can spoil at the exposed surface. Vinegar absorbed by the vegetables must be replaced with more boiled, cooled vinegar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, cucumber, beetroot, beans, vinegar):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, cucumber, beetroot, beans, vinegar. 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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