Name: Cornichons
Ingredients: 1 pound small green cucumbers; cold water; 1 cup vinegar; spices (to taste)

Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cornichons

Ingredients

1 pound small green cucumbers
cold water
1 cup vinegar
spices (to taste)

Directions

Prepare

Choose small, firm cucumbers and rinse them in cold water.
Soak the cucumbers for a few hours to remove any fuzz.
Boil the vinegar and prepare your spices.

Pickle

Remove the cucumbers from the water and place them in the boiling vinegar.
Ensure the spices are added to the vinegar before pouring it 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.

Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Small green cucumbers: Form the body of the pickle, so firm, small fruit gives the crisp texture cornichons are known for.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the cucumbers.

“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.