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Mustard Pickles

Pickled cucumbers, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, and green peppers in a mustard and vinegar brine.

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 ↓

Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop cucumbers, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, and green peppers.

  2. Let them stand overnight in salt water.

  3. Drain the vegetables, scald them in clear water, and drain again.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 pint of vinegar with flour to make a paste, then add mustard and turmeric.

  2. Scald the remaining vinegar with sugar and seeds.

  3. Add the paste.

Thicken and can

  1. Stir vigorously until it thickens.

  2. Scald again.

  3. Can immediately.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the pickle and keep a firm, crisp texture after scalding.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Flour
Starch that thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, spoonable sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that gives the pickle its name.

The step that matters

Stir vigorously until it thickens. The flour paste must be stirred constantly as it joins the hot vinegar, so the starch disperses evenly and forms a smooth sauce rather than lumps or scorched bits on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, pepper, vinegar, 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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