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French Mustard Pickles

Pickles made with cucumbers, onions, peppers, cauliflower, tomatoes, mustard, and spices, preserved in vinegar and sugar.

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 ↓

French Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Soak cucumbers, onions, green peppers, cauliflowers, and green tomatoes in salt water overnight.

  2. Scald the vegetables in the same water, then boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Drain the vegetables and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. In a pot, boil vinegar, sugar, and celery seed.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, mustard, and turmeric with a little vinegar.

  3. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling 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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a crisp, firm bite.
Flour
Thickens the boiling vinegar into a smooth, rich sauce that coats the vegetables.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness and acidity of the vinegar.
Sugar
Sweetens the vinegar and offsets its sharpness.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling vinegar. Flour thickens only when it is dispersed evenly. Mixing it first with a little vinegar makes a smooth slurry; adding dry flour directly to hot liquid forms lumps that cannot be whisked out.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, cauliflower, tomato, vinegar, sugar, celery. 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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