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Spanish Pickle

A pickled mixture of young corn, beans, cucumbers, onions, nasturtiums, melons, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, and spices in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Gather young vegetables like corn, beans, cucumbers, onions, nasturtiums, melons, and set aside cabbage and tomatoes.

  2. Chop the cabbage and tomatoes, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let sit overnight.

  3. Soak the other vegetables in brine until fresh.

Make the pickle

  1. Mix all vegetables together with the chopped cabbage and tomatoes.

  2. Add cloves, ginger, mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, Coleman's mustard, brown sugar, and grated horseradish.

  3. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the mixture and boil until the vegetables are tender and the mixture thickens.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + melontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Beans + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk that holds up during the long simmer.
Tomatoes
Contribute moisture and body that help the mixture thicken as it boils.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor and a sharp bite to the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling until the vegetables are tender and the mixture thickens. Boiling in vinegar and sugar softens the vegetables and reduces the liquid, so the pickle thickens. Stopping too early leaves the vegetables firm and the liquid thin, while overcooking can turn them mushy.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, beans, cucumber, onion, cabbage, tomato, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, beans, cucumber, onion, cabbage, tomato, pepper. 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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