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Yellow Pickle
Take a quarter of a pound of brown mustard seed, two ounces of long pepper, two ounces of black pepper, two ounces of garlic, one ounce of turmeric, a quarter of an ounce of mace, three roots of horse-radish, and half a pound of salt. Dry these in gredients thoroughly, and pour over them a gallon of cold vinegar. Procure a large head of cauliflower, two cabbages, six large carrots, and a quart of French beans. Cut the vegetables into small pieces, strew salt over them, and let them stand for twenty-four hours. Drain them on cloths, and dry them on hair sieves in the sun, or near the fire, for twelve days. Put with them a quart of small onions, and let them dry two days longer. Put them into a large jar, with the vinegar, and let the pickle stand near the fire or in a warm place. It must not, however, be made hotter than new milk. At the end of ten days it will be ready for use. If it is too thick, a little boiling vinegar may be added. Time, three to four weeks.
A full-scale Victorian mixed pickle in the Anglo-Indian manner, closer to piccalilli than to anything jarred today. The quantities are for a household putting up a gallon at a time, and the whole thing hinges on getting the vegetables genuinely dry before they meet the vinegar.
- Scale it downAs written this fills a stoneware crock with roughly a gallon of vinegar (an imperial gallon is about 4.5 litres) plus several pounds of vegetables. A quarter batch is plenty for a modern kitchen and fits in two large preserving jars.
- Liquid measuresAn imperial quart is 40 fl oz, or about 1.1 litres, so "a quart of French beans" and "a quart of small onions" mean roughly a litre by volume of each, not a weight. French beans are green beans; small onions means pickling onions or shallots.
- Long pepperPiper longum, a spikier relative of black pepper, once common in English spice cupboards and now sold mainly by specialist spice merchants. Extra black pepper is the usual substitute, though it loses the faint sweetness long pepper brings.
- Turmeric and maceAn ounce of turmeric here means the dried root or its powder, which is what gives the pickle its name and colour. Mace is the outer casing of nutmeg; a quarter ounce is roughly 7 g, which is a good handful of blade mace or somewhat over a tablespoon ground -- weigh it rather than measure by spoon, as blade mace is very light.
- The drying stage is the whole recipeTwelve days on hair sieves in the sun is a slow dehydration that draws out water so the vinegar is not diluted into weakness. A dehydrator or a very low oven with the door ajar does the same work in hours. Anything that goes slimy, soft or spotted during drying should be thrown out rather than pickled.
- "Not hotter than new milk"New milk means milk fresh from the cow, so blood heat, around 98F. The warm crock is there to help the spices infuse, not to cook anything. Ten days at that temperature in an unsealed jar is a Victorian arrangement; a week at room temperature and then the refrigerator gives the same infusion with less risk of surface mould.
- Vinegar strengthUse vinegar labelled 5 per cent acidity and keep the vegetables fully submerged, topping up with more vinegar as they absorb it. Malt vinegar is the period-correct choice and stands up to the mustard and turmeric better than cider vinegar.
- TimingThe recipe says ready in ten days after potting but gives "three to four weeks" as the total time, which counts the salting and the long drying. Flavour keeps improving for a couple of months.
Yellow pickle belongs to the family of English mixed pickles that grew out of eighteenth-century imitations of Indian achar, sold and copied under names like Indian pickle, piccalilli and pickle-lilla. The yellow comes from turmeric, which arrived in British kitchens as part of the same trade that brought mustard-heavy "curry" seasonings, and by the time Cassell's was compiled in the later nineteenth century a jar of something bright yellow and mustardy was a fixture beside cold beef and cheese. The long solar drying on hair sieves points to an older, pre-refrigeration logic: water is the enemy of a keeping pickle, so it is removed by salt and then by air before the vinegar goes anywhere near the vegetables. Placing the crock in a warm corner rather than boiling it is the same instinct, keeping the vegetables crisp while the spices leach out slowly.