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Piccalilli

Piccalilli is a pickled relish of green tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, cucumbers, and spices, boiled in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Piccalilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine sliced green tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and cucumbers in a large bowl.

  2. Cover with salt and water and let stand for 24 hours.

Layer and cook

  1. In a kettle, layer the vegetables with grated horseradish, turmeric, cloves, whole pepper, cassia buds, white mustard seed, and English mustard.

  2. Cover the mixture with cold vinegar.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Cauliflower + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a tart, firm body.
Cucumbers
Add crisp texture that holds up through the pickling process.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crunchy pieces that absorb the spiced vinegar.
White mustard seed
Provides sharp pungency and a characteristic mustard flavour in the pickle.
English mustard
Adds heat and pungency that deepens the sharp, spiced flavour.
Cold vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, preserving the vegetables and giving the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Stirring keeps the mustard and spices from settling and scorching on the base of the kettle, and boiling gives the vinegar and spices time to flavour the vegetables evenly. Without constant stirring, the bottom can burn and taste bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cauliflower, cucumber, horseradish, turmeric, clove, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cauliflower, cucumber, horseradish, turmeric, clove, pepper. 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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