Name: Pickles
Ingredients: best cider vinegar; small lump of alum; ½ cup sugar per gallon; bits of horseradish; a few cloves; best brown sugar or good maple sugar

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the cider vinegar in a porcelain kettle.
Dissolve a small lump of alum and add it when scalding the pickles for the first time to keep them crisp.
Store pickles in glass or stoneware and check them frequently, removing any soft ones.
If white specks appear in the vinegar, drain and scald the pickles, adding ½ cup sugar for each gallon.
Pour the vinegar back over the pickles, adding bits of horseradish and cloves for preservation.
If using large stone jars, invert a saucer over the pickles to keep them submerged in vinegar.
For bottling, seal while hot and store in a cool, dark place.
Avoid using any containers that have held grease and do not let the pickles freeze.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,245 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,683 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, horseradish):

Cinnamonfits better
Allspicefits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, horseradish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.