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Mustard Pickle

A pickle made from cucumbers, green string beans, green peppers, onions, ground mustard, sweet oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Cut cucumbers, beans, green peppers, and onions into small pieces.

Brine and combine

  1. Soak cucumbers and beans in a strong brine for 24 hours.

  2. Remove from brine and mix with ground mustard, sweet oil, and vinegar.

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. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 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
Their watery flesh firms and turns crisp when brined, giving the pickle its crunch.
Ground mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavor that defines a mustard pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the vegetables.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the pickle a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Soaking the cucumbers and beans in strong brine for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, which firms their texture. Too weak or too short a soak leaves them soft, and the brine also seasons them through, so the strength and timing matter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, beans, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, beans, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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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