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Piccalilli
2 heads sound white cab- 1/2 lb. white mustard seeds bage 2 heads cauliflower 1 teaspoonful ground ginger 1 teaspoonful white pepper 1 teaspoonful powdered mace Vinegar 4 green peppers 4 red peppers 4 dozen small cucumbers 3 quarts small green string beans ¼ peck green tomatoes 1 bunch celery 6 large white onions Tie the spices in a muslin bag. Chop the vegetables, sprinkle with salt, allow to stand for three hours, then drain and squeeze out. Cover with hot vinegar, add the spice bag, and allow to stand until the next morning. Reheat the vinegar and pour it over the pickle; do this for three days, then keep in an earthenware dish tightly covered.
A large-batch mustard-seed pickle of the fresh-pack type: salted raw vegetables, then repeated dousings with hot vinegar over three days. The ingredient column has run together, so read the quantities carefully before shopping.
- The hinge: repeat the hot vinegarThe pickle is never cooked. Its keeping quality comes entirely from draining the salted vegetables hard and then drawing the vinegar off, reheating it and pouring it back for three consecutive days, which drives acid into the vegetables as their own liquid dilutes it. Skipping a day leaves a weak, watery brine.
- ScaleFour dozen cucumbers, three quarts of beans, two cauliflowers and two cabbages is on the order of 25-30 lb of prepared vegetables, or roughly 12-16 quarts of finished pickle. Quarter the whole list for a manageable batch.
- PeckA peck is 8 dry quarts, about 10-12 lb of green tomatoes. The figure printed here has lost its fraction; a quarter to a half peck (3-6 lb) is proportionate to the rest of the vegetables.
- SaltNo amount is given. A common modern guideline for a dry salting of this kind is about 1/2 cup of pickling or kosher salt per 5 lb of chopped vegetables. Non-iodised salt is generally preferred; the additives in table salt can cloud the liquid.
- Mustard seedHalf a pound of white (yellow) mustard seed is about 1 1/4 cups. The recipe says only to tie 'the spices' in the muslin bag and does not make clear whether the mustard seed is meant to be included.
- VinegarBuy cider or distilled vinegar labelled 5 per cent acidity and use it undiluted. Period recipes assumed strong vinegar, and the wine and "pickling" vinegars sold today vary enough to matter here. Use enough to cover the drained vegetables; for the full batch that means several quarts.
- Green tomatoes and green peppersGreen tomatoes are unripe slicing tomatoes, chosen for firmness and tartness. The four green and four red peppers are sweet frying peppers of the period, not chillies.
- StorageAn earthenware crock in a cold cellar was the original plan, and old glazes are not reliably lead-free. For room-temperature shelf storage, follow a current tested pickle recipe with measured acid and a boiling-water process; otherwise pack the finished piccalilli into clean jars and keep it refrigerated, where it will hold for a few months.
- ServingA relish, not a side dish. A tablespoon or two beside cold meat, ham, cheese or a baked casserole is the intended portion.
Piccalilli reached English kitchens in the eighteenth century as "India pickle" or paco-lilla, a mustard-and-spice imitation of the mixed achar that ships brought back from South Asia; the origin of the name is recorded as obscure, and the derivation from that borrowing is one proposal rather than a settled tracing. British versions settled into a thick turmeric-yellow mustard sauce over cauliflower and onion, while American cookbooks of the late nineteenth century turned it into a chopped, brothy mixed pickle heavy on green tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage - the surplus of a September garden, salted down before frost. This one carries no turmeric at all, which is unusual, and leans instead on white mustard seed, mace and ginger.