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Mixed Pickles, Hot

A spicy pickled vegetable mix made with malt vinegar, ginger, mustard, and assorted vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles, Hot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. In a jar, combine the malt vinegar, ginger, mustard, coarse sea salt, mustard seed, turmeric, black pepper, and chillies.

  2. Bruise the spices and add them to the jar.

Ferment

  1. Keep the jar in a warm place for three weeks, stirring the contents every other day with a wooden spoon.

Add the vegetables

  1. After three weeks, add unwashed but wiped vegetables like cauliflower, celery, cucumber, beans, and onions.

  2. Feel free to add nasturtiums or capsicums for extra heat.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together514 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Malt vinegar
Provides the acidic liquid that preserves the vegetables and carries the spice flavours.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour and a sharp bite as the spices steep in the vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its golden colour and an earthy, warm flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and helps keep them crisp and preserved.
Chillies
Supply heat, which builds in intensity as they steep in the vinegar.
Cauliflower
Forms the crisp, firm body of the pickle that soaks up the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Bruise the spices before adding them to the jar. Bruising breaks open the seed and spice cell walls, so more of their aromatic oils and flavour compounds release into the vinegar during the long steep.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (malt, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, pepper, cauliflower, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, vinegar, mustard, turmeric, pepper, cauliflower, celery. 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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