Name: Oil Cucumber Pickle
Ingredients: medium sized cucumbers; salt; sliced onions; black mustard seed; white mustard seed; French dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Oil Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the cucumbers and soak them in salt water overnight.
Drain the cucumbers.
In a glass jar, layer the cucumbers and sliced onions alternately.
Sprinkle black and white mustard seeds between the layers.
Pour well-seasoned French dressing over the layered cucumbers and onions.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

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