Name: Mustard Pickles
Ingredients: 1½ gallons best white wine vinegar; 4 ounces bruised ginger; 2 ounces allspice; ½ ounce bruised chillies; 2 ounces turmeric; 1 pound shallots; 1 ounce garlic; ½ pound coarse sea salt

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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pot, combine the vinegar, ginger, allspice, chillies, turmeric, and salt.
Bring to a boil for 15 minutes.
Add the shallots and garlic, and boil for an additional 3 minutes.
Mix the mustard and turmeric with a little vinegar before adding to the pot.
Once nearly cool, add cucumbers, beans, and onions.

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).
Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together282 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together629 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the garlic

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

Clovefits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Garlicthe original

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