Name: Bottled Mixed Pickles
Ingredients: onions; cucumbers; green tomatoes; carrots; cauliflowers; coarse sea salt; vinegar; black or red peppers

Why it works: Cucumber and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Bottled Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Chop equal quantities of onions, cucumbers, green tomatoes, carrots, and cauliflowers.
Cook the vegetables in salted water until fork-tender but not soft.
Heat vinegar with black or red peppers.
While the pickles are hot, layer them alternately in a glass jar.
Pour hot peppered vinegar over the pickles and seal the jar.
Ensure the jar is hot before sealing.

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.

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.

Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together584 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, tomato, carrot, cauliflower, vinegar, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Broccolifits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, carrot, cauliflower, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.