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Mustard Pickles

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, onions, cauliflower, and peppers flavored with mustard, celery seed, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Place each vegetable in separate dishes and cover with hot brine.

  2. Let stand overnight.

Make the pickles

  1. In the morning, drain off the liquid and combine all vegetables in one bowl.

  2. Add brown sugar, cider vinegar, mustard seed, and celery seed.

  3. Heat until it comes to a scald.

  4. Make a paste with flour, mustard, and turmeric.

  5. Stir in slowly and bring to a boil.

  6. Adjust sweetness by adding more sugar if desired.

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

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Firm pieces that hold their crunch through the brine and cooking.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and adds depth of flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, rich sauce.
Mustard seed
Adds the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their bright yellow color and earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and mustard paste. Flour clumps if added to hot liquid without being smoothed into a paste first. Stirring slowly while bringing to a boil keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

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

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

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