Name: Pickles
Ingredients: ½ pound coarse sea salt; 1 ounce black pepper; 2 ounces garlic, minced; 1 ounce yellow mustard; 2 ounces ginger, minced; ½ ounce cayenne pepper; 2 ounces celery seed; 4 quarts vinegar

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 ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Combine salt, pepper, garlic, mustard, ginger, cayenne pepper, and celery seed in a pot.
Boil the mixture in 4 quarts of vinegar.
Wash and wipe the cucumbers.
Place the cucumbers in jars.
Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,402 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the ginger

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

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Parsleyfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, garlic, mustard, celery, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.