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Spiced Vinegar for Pickles

A vinegar-based brine seasoned with sugar, spices, and aromatics for pickling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar for Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced brine

  1. In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, table mustard, white ginger, ground pepper, turmeric, nutmeg, ground all-spice, mace, cloves, and celery seed.

  2. Pound the mixture well before adding it to the vinegar.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add the scraped horseradish, sliced lemon, and small onions to the vinegar mixture.

  2. Let the pickles sit in plain vinegar for 2 weeks before adding them to this spiced vinegar mixture.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turmeric + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 and sharpens the pickling liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavour that mellows as the brine steeps.
Scraped horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat to the brine.
Small onions
Absorb the spiced brine and become flavourful as they soak.

The step that matters

Pound the spice mixture well before adding it to the vinegar. Whole and coarse spices release their oils and flavour slowly, so breaking them down increases surface area and lets the brine take up their aroma more evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, mustard, ginger, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, ginger, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg. 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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