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Mustard Pickle

Pickled cucumbers and onions in a spiced vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,102 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mustard Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select small cucumbers and onions and soak them in pickling overnight.

  2. Place the cucumbers and onions in jars.

Make and seal

  1. In a pot, mix vinegar, sugar, turmeric, curry powder, flour, salt, and red pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture, stirring continuously to keep it smooth.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles in the jars and seal tightly.

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 + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 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

Small cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles and stay crisp-textured after brining.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the hot liquid so it coats the vegetables.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, spiced aroma that defines the flavor of the pickles.
Turmeric
Adds a yellow color and earthy aroma to the brine.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture while stirring continuously. Flour settles to the bottom and scorches or forms lumps when heated without constant stirring. Continuous stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the liquid thickens smoothly and evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, flour, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, flour, 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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