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Mustard Pickles II

A pickled cucumber and vegetable mixture flavored with mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower 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 ↓

Mustard Pickles II

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Put the chopped cucumbers, onions, green peppers, and red peppers in separate dishes.

  2. Cover with hot brine (1 ½ cups salt to 1 quart water). Let stand overnight, then drain.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, mix 1 ½ cups flour, ½ cup mustard, and 1 tablespoon turmeric with 1 cup cold vinegar.

  2. Heat the remaining vinegar to boiling.

  3. Add sugar and spices.

  4. Slowly add the flour mixture while stirring constantly.

Cook and seal

  1. Heat all to boiling. Boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Seal in sterile bottles.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Flour
Thickens the dressing so it becomes a smooth, thick sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the dressing.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles a bright yellow colour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Slowly add the flour mixture while stirring constantly. Flour clumps when it meets hot liquid unless it is dispersed evenly and stirred. Adding it slowly while stirring keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery. 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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