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Yellow Pickle

A pickled mixture of green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and celery in a mustard and vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the green peppers, cucumbers, green tomatoes, onions, cauliflowers, and celery.

  2. Cover the chopped vegetables with salt and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vegetables and add the mustard seed.

Make the pickle

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the mustard, flour, sugar, turmeric powder, and 1 pint of cider vinegar.

  2. Scald 3½ quarts of cider vinegar in a pot.

  3. When the vinegar is scalding, add the mixture and vegetables, and leave on the stove to scald until soft. Do not boil.

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

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

  3. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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
Adds bulk and tartness that balances the sugar and vinegar.
Cauliflowers
Holds its shape and adds firm texture to the pickle.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture so it becomes a smooth, spoonable sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the cider vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Turmeric powder
Gives the pickle its characteristic yellow colour.

The step that matters

Scalding without boiling. Holding the mixture just below a boil lets the vegetables soften while keeping their texture intact. Boiling can break them down and cause the flour-thickened sauce to scorch or lump.

Swap the onion

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

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

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