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Mustard Pickle

A pickle made from cucumbers, green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and a mustard-flavored dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, green tomatoes, cabbage, and onions in a large bowl.

  2. Boil the mixture in weak salt water until tender.

  3. Drain the mixture and let it sit overnight.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, ground mustard, flour, and turmeric.

  2. Boil the dressing and pour it 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 + 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. Cucumber + tomatotop 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

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the crisp, watery vegetable base of the pickle.
Green tomatoes
Add firm body and a tart flavor to the pickle mixture.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild crunch that softens during boiling.
Onions
Contribute savory flavor and aroma to the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp taste.
Ground mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines mustard pickle.

The step that matters

Boil the dressing and pour it over the pickles. Flour mixed with ground mustard and turmeric can lump or scorch if not stirred while boiling. Boiling fully cooks the flour so the dressing thickens smoothly and coats the vegetables evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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