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Indian Relish

A pickled relish of green tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, celery, cauliflower, and green peppers in mustard, flour, brown sugar, turmeric, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Indian Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop all vegetables finely except the green peppers.

  2. Sprinkle chopped vegetables with salt, cover with a weighted plate, and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the vegetables.

Make the sauce and cook

  1. In a bowl, thoroughly blend mustard, flour, brown sugar, and turmeric powder.

  2. Add scalded vinegar to the dry ingredients and boil until the mixture thickens.

  3. Add the drained vegetables and finely chopped green peppers.

  4. Boil slowly for 4 hours.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  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

Mustard
Adds sharp pungency and flavour that stands up to the long cooking.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the vinegar, giving the relish body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and sharpens its flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables overnight, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Green tomatoes
Supply bulk and a tart, firm texture that holds up through slow boiling.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates excess moisture and softens the vegetables while the sauce thickens. Too fast a boil can scorch the flour-thickened base on the bottom of the pan, so stir often and keep the heat low.

Swap the onion

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

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

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