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Mustard Pickles II

A pickled vegetable mix of cucumbers, onions, peppers, and cauliflower in a mustard-flavored brine.

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

Brine the vegetables

  1. Put the chopped vegetables in separate dishes and cover with hot brine made from 14 cups salt and 1 quart water.

  2. Let the vegetables stand overnight, then drain them.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, mix 1⅓ cups flour, 1⅓ cups mustard, and 1 tablespoon turmeric with 1 cup cold vinegar.

  2. Heat the remaining vinegar to boiling, then add the sugar and spices.

  3. Slowly add the flour mixture while stirring constantly.

  4. Heat the entire mixture to boiling and boil for 5 minutes.

Seal

  1. Seal the pickles 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 mustard dressing into a smooth, rich sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickles and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their yellow colour and a warm aroma.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they stay crisp and firm.

The step that matters

Slowly add the flour mixture while stirring constantly. Flour added to hot liquid can clump into lumps if poured in quickly. Adding it slowly while stirring disperses the starch evenly so the dressing thickens smoothly.

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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