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Virginia Mixed Pickle

A preserved vegetable mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, peppers, onions, and horseradish pickled in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Virginia Mixed Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, green pepper, white onions, and horseradish with a large knife.

  2. Mix all the chopped ingredients in a granite or stone bowl.

  3. Sprinkle the coarse sea salt over the mixture and let it stand overnight.

  4. Place the mixture in a bag to drain well.

  5. Pour weak vinegar over the drained mixture and let it stand overnight.

  6. Press out all the vinegar.

Make the dressing and pack

  1. In a pot, combine the light brown sugar, strong apple vinegar, celery seed, turmeric, white mustard seed, and Durkee's mustard dressing.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly for 45 minutes.

  3. Put the pickle in jars and cover with the vinegar.

  4. Seal the jars tightly.

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 + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a firm, tart body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and helping them drain.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Strong apple vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that deepens as the pickle cooks.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Draining the salted vegetables. Salt and overnight standing pull water out of the vegetables. Pressing out the weak vinegar thoroughly keeps the pickle from diluting the sweet-sour dressing and staying crisp.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, cabbage, pepper, onion, horseradish, sugar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, cabbage, pepper, onion, horseradish, sugar. 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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