Skip to main content
Main

Piccalilli

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 green tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and cucumbers in a large bowl with salt and water.

  2. Let stand for 24 hours.

Layer and cook

  1. In a kettle, layer the vegetables with grated horseradish, turmeric, cloves, whole pepper, cassia buds or cinnamon, 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 add tartness and body to the relish.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and moisture that softens slightly during pickling.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor and sharpness that mellows during cooking.
English mustard
Adds heat and sharp mustard flavor to the vinegar-based pickle.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Constant stirring prevents the mustard and spices in the vinegar from scorching on the bottom of the kettle, and the boil softens the vegetables while blending flavors.

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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCauliflower SoupCauliflower Soup28 recipes