Name: Mustard Pickues
Ingredients: 1½ gallons best white wine vinegar; 4 ounces ginger, bruised; 2 ounces allspice; ½ ounce chillies, bruised; 2 ounces turmeric; 1 pound Keen’s mustard; 1 ounce garlic; 2 pounds coarse sea salt; 2 large onions, cut in small pieces

Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mustard Pickues

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pot, combine the vinegar, ginger, allspice, chillies, turmeric, mustard, garlic, salt, and onions.
Boil the mixture for 15 minutes, adding the onions and garlic for the last 3 minutes.
Mix the mustard and turmeric with some vinegar before boiling.
Once done, transfer the mixture to a crock.
Allow to cool, then add the vegetables.

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.

Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,776 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,279 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, ginger, allspice, turmeric, mustard, garlic):

Shallotfits better
Horseradishfits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, ginger, allspice, turmeric, mustard, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.