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Mixed Pickle

A pickled mixture of string beans, green tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, celery, lima beans, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and lima beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the vegetables finely.

  2. Boil each type of vegetable in salt water separately until tender, then drain.

Make and seal the pickles

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the drained vegetables and spices to the pot.

  3. Heat thoroughly and seal in 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. Beans + lima beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  3. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  4. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and adds depth of flavour.
Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and hold their shape while absorbing the spiced vinegar.
Cauliflower
Adds firm, crisp texture that stays substantial after boiling and pickling.

The step that matters

Boil each vegetable separately until tender. Vegetables differ in density, so cooking them together can leave some mushy and others raw. Cooking each type separately lets every vegetable reach the right tenderness before it joins the hot vinegar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, celery, lima beans):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, cucumber, cauliflower, pepper, celery, lima beans. 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

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