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Mixed Pickle with Mustard Dressing

A pickle of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and peppers dressed in a mustard, turmeric, and sugar vinaigrette.

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 ↓

Mixed Pickle with Mustard Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Make a brine with 1 pint of coarse sea salt and 4 quarts of water.

  2. Pour the brine over the vegetables.

  3. Let stand for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the vegetables in a colander.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of sifted flour, 6 tablespoons of ground mustard, 1 tablespoon of turmeric, and 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Add enough cold vinegar to make a smooth paste.

  3. Mix in hot vinegar to make 2 quarts of dressing.

  4. Cook the dressing in a double boiler until thick.

Combine and seal

  1. Add the vegetables to the dressing.

  2. Heat thoroughly before sealing in Mason jars.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cucumbers
Provide the main crisp vegetable body of the pickle.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture that holds up through cooking in the dressing.
Ground mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines the pickle.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it coats the vegetables.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing in a double boiler until thick. Flour thickens only as its starch gelatinizes with gentle, steady heat. Direct high heat can scorch the mixture or leave lumps, so a double boiler keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thick.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, pepper, flour, mustard, turmeric. 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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