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Turmeric Pickle

A pickled cucumber and onion mixture flavored with turmeric, spices, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Turmeric Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cucumbers and onions into equal parts and soak them in saltwater; change the water daily for three days.

  2. Scald the cucumbers and onions in vinegar.

Pack and cover

  1. In a large jar, layer the cucumbers and onions with a teaspoon of sweet oil and a layer of spices.

  2. Add enough cold vinegar to cover the mixture and stir frequently.

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. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm body of the pickle, which salting and soaking help keep.
Onions
Add savory sharpness that mellows as the pickle sits in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Turmeric
Colors the pickle yellow.

The step that matters

Scalding the cucumbers and onions in vinegar. Scalding heats the vegetables just enough to soften them slightly while keeping their structure. Overheating or holding them too long in hot vinegar makes them limp and mushy, so the crunch is lost.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, allspice, mustard, pepper, sugar, turmeric. 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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