Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Pickle

A pickled cucumber and vegetable mixture seasoned with mustard, turmeric, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cucumbers into large pieces.

  2. Chop the cabbage, onions, and bell peppers finely.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the vegetables and let them stand for 12 hours.

  4. Press the vegetables dry with your hands.

Cook and seal

  1. In a porcelain kettle, layer the vegetables with the spices.

  2. Cover with cider vinegar and boil until it begins to thicken.

  3. Seal while hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery base that the pickle is built around.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and crunch that holds its texture through the long soak.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during cooking.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.

The step that matters

Pressing the vegetables dry. Salting draws water out of the vegetables; if they stay wet, the pickle dilutes the vinegar, softens and loses crispness, and the brine weakens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, turmeric, celery, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, pepper, mustard, turmeric, celery, 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesStewed CabbageStewed Cabbage58 recipesBaked CabbageBaked Cabbage51 recipes