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Pickled Cauliflowers

Pickled cauliflower is a preserved vegetable dish made by brining cauliflower florets with onions, peppers, salt, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pickled Cauliflowers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve ½ pint of salt in enough water to cover the vegetables and let them soak overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the vegetables.

Pickle

  1. Heat 2 quarts of vinegar with 4 tablespoons of mustard until it boils.

  2. Add the vegetables and boil for about 15 minutes, or until a fork can be easily thrust through the cauliflower.

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. Cauliflower + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 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

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the pickle and keeps its texture firm once cooked.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that complements the acidic vinegar.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables during soaking, helping them stay crisp.

The step that matters

Boiling the vegetables in the vinegar. Boiling too long softens the cauliflower until it turns mushy, while too short a time leaves it raw. Testing with a fork shows when the florets are tender but still hold their shape.

Swap the onion

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

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

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