Name: Mustard Pickles
Ingredients: 1½ gallons vinegar; 1 pound mustard; 2 pounds onions; 1 ounce white pepper; 1 ounce ginger; 1 ounce turmeric; 1 ounce cloves; 1 ounce small red peppers; 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

Combine all ingredients in a large pot with the vinegar.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add the pickles and boil for an additional 10 minutes.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,279 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,876 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, onion, ginger, turmeric, clove, pepper):

Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Cuminfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, onion, ginger, turmeric, clove, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.