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Mustard Pickles

A pickled vegetable mix flavored with curry powder or spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Soak cucumbers, onions, string beans, cauliflower, celery, and green peppers in salt water overnight.

  2. Drain and rinse in weak salt water, then place in cans.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with curry powder or spices, then pour over the pickles.

  2. Optionally, add green tomatoes.

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main crunchy body of the pickle mix.
Cauliflower
Adds firm texture that holds its crispness in the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens flavor.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the brine.

The step that matters

Soaking in salt water overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis, firming them and reducing excess moisture so the pickle stays crisp rather than watery once the vinegar is added.

Swap the onion

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

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

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