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Oiled Pickles

Pickled cucumbers and onions preserved in oil and vinegar with mustard and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Oiled Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the cucumbers and rub them with a cloth.

  2. Peel the onions and slice both the cucumbers and onions into thin slices.

  3. Layer cucumbers and onions in a bowl, sprinkling salt between layers until all are used.

  4. Place a weight on top and let sit overnight.

  5. In the morning, drain the mixture.

Alum soak

  1. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of powdered alum in enough cold vinegar to cover the pickles and let stand until afternoon.

  2. Drain again, saving the vinegar for other pickles.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the cucumbers and onions into jars.

  2. Mix the remaining ingredients together, gradually adding the oil and vinegar, then pour over the pickles.

  3. Seal the jars.

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.

  1. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Small pickles
Provide the crisp, cucumber body of the pickles once salted and packed.
Small onions
Add sharp aroma and sweetness that mellows as the pickles stand.
Olive oil
Adds richness and carries the mustard and spice flavors through the pickles.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens the pickles and helps preserve them.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent heat and flavor that spreads through the oil and vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salt rest. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions. Draining well removes that liquid so the pickles stay crisp and the oil and vinegar dressing is not diluted.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, olive, celery, cider, vinegar):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, olive, celery, cider, vinegar. 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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