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Mixed Pickles

Mixed pickles of cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, and spices preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash cucumbers and remove their stems, cutting them if necessary.

  2. Peel the onions.

  3. Remove the leaves from the cauliflower and break it into pieces.

  4. Cover the vegetables with hot brine made from ½ cup salt and 1 quart water.

  5. Let stand overnight.

  6. Drain the vegetables.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. Heat the vinegar and add the sugar to it.

  2. Cut the red pepper into fine strips.

  3. Tie the spices in cheesecloth.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes.

Pack and seal

  1. Pour the hot brine over the vegetables.

  2. Put the pickles in sterile bottles.

  3. Seal the 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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cauliflower + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together105 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together501 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle and stay crisp when brined and then pickled.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables during the brine, firming their texture.
Cinnamon, allspice and cloves
Add warm aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Let the vegetables stand overnight in brine. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming their texture so they stay crisp after pickling. Skipping or shortening this soak leaves them softer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, vinegar, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, allspice. 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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