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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mixture flavored with mustard, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

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

  2. Soak the cut vegetables in salt water overnight.

  3. Scald the vegetables in the morning.

  4. Drain the vegetables.

  5. Combine the vegetables in a crock.

Make the dressing and pour

  1. In a separate pot, mix vinegar, mustard, sugar, flour, celery seed, and turmeric.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the pickles.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, bulk body of the pickle.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture and bulk that holds up to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor that defines the pickle's character.
Flour
Thickens the boiled dressing so it clings to the vegetables.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture before pouring. Flour thickens the dressing only when it is brought to a boil and stirred; if it stays cool, it can clump or stay thin, so the vegetables will not be coated evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cauliflower, onion, vinegar, mustard, sugar, 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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