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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture of green tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and cabbage flavored with mustard, vinegar, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Place the green tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and cabbage in a weak brine overnight.

  2. Boil the vegetables until tender.

  3. Chop the boiled vegetables.

Make the pickles

  1. Make a syrup by combining the vinegar and sugar in a pot.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and mustard to the syrup.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour.

  4. Boil until thick and well done.

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

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

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and firm texture of the pickle.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and body to the pickled vegetables.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its tang.
Flour
Thickens the syrup so it coats the vegetables.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Boil until thick and well done. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot syrup to thicken evenly and lose its raw starchy taste. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce or a pasty, floury flavor.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cucumber, cabbage, flour, vinegar, sugar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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