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Spanish Pickle

A pickled mixture of cucumbers, cabbage, onions, and peppers seasoned with salt, celery seed, ginger, mustard, horseradish, sugar, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine cucumbers, cabbage, onions, and green peppers in a large bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the mixture in a bag overnight and press dry with your hands.

Make the pickle

  1. Layer the mixture in a porcelain kettle with celery seed, ginger, mustard, and horseradish.

  2. Dissolve sugar and turmeric in cider vinegar and pour over the mixture.

  3. Mix well and boil for 30 minutes or until tender and thickened.

  4. 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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk of the crisp, watery texture that the pickle is built around.
Cabbage
Adds body and a firm texture that holds up through the long boil.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables so they drain and press dry.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Pressing the salted vegetables dry. Salt draws water out of the vegetables. If they are not drained and pressed well, the excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and sugar and leaves the pickle watery and less thick after boiling.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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