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Best Ever Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix flavored with mustard, turmeric, and celery seed.

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

Best Ever Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut cucumbers, cauliflower, and tomatoes into small pieces.

  2. Chop onions and peppers together.

  3. Combine all vegetables with salt and a little water. Let stand overnight.

  4. In the morning, scald the mixture in the same water. Drain and discard the water.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix flour, sugar, mustard, turmeric, and celery seed. Slowly stir in 1 quart of vinegar.

  2. Heat the remaining vinegar until scalding hot. Slowly pour in the vinegar mixture while stirring constantly. Boil for a few minutes.

Pack and serve

  1. Place the chopped pickles in jars. Pour the hot dressing over them.

  2. For extra heat, add chopped red peppers 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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 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

Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp texture that holds up after scalding and soaking in the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the mustard dressing so it clings to the vegetables instead of running off.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Ground mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines mustard pickles.
Turmeric
Gives the dressing its characteristic yellow color and mild earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the vinegar. Adding the vinegar slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour and mustard from clumping, so the dressing thickens evenly and stays smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, tomato, vinegar, celery, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, tomato, vinegar, celery, flour. 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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