Piccalilly (Dutch Mustard Pickle Relish)

Piccalilly is what happens when a frugal table gets hold of empire's spice drawer and refuses to become grand about it. In my grandmother's second notebook it sat between pickled onions and appeltjesmoes, apple sauce, which is exactly where it belongs: not as a showpiece, but as one of the small jars that rescue a cold plate from boredom. A spoonful beside sliced ham, boiled beef, oude kaas, old cheese, or yesterday's potatoes, and suddenly the meal has a bright yellow argument on it.

The name already tells you it travelled, though it refuses to give a tidy confession. English cookery books were writing about India pickle in the eighteenth century, then piccalillo, then piccalilli, a cheerful corruption around mixed pickles, mustard, turmeric, and the British habit of domesticating things it had first met abroad. The Dutch received it in the practical way we receive most useful foreigners: we put it in the cupboard, served it with cold meats, and acted as if it had always been there. For obvious reasons, the jar did not object.

But let me tell you a secret. The sauce is not there to drown the vegetables. It is there to hold them in a sharp, mustardy suspension, so cauliflower still snaps, onion still bites, and gherkin keeps its vinegar backbone. Salt the vegetables first and you pull out their excess water; rush that step and the sauce thins into yellow disappointment. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple: salt, rinse, simmer the sauce, fold, jar, wait. The waiting is the seasoning.