Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Conservation Des Cornichons
Ingredients
Directions
Brush each gherkin to remove rough hairs and trim the ends.
Soak the gherkins in fresh water for a few hours.
Boil the strong vinegar.
Drain the gherkins, dry them, and place them in jars with onions, tarragon, garlic, peppercorns, and cloves.
Pour the boiling vinegar over the gherkins and let it cool uncovered.
Seal the jars and let them rest for three days.
After three days, remove the vinegar, boil it again, and pour it back over the gherkins after it has cooled.
Repeat this process a third time after another three days.
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.
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together548 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,547 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tarragon + garlictop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together884 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,368 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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 (onion, tarragon, garlic, vinegar):
- Thymefits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tarragon, garlic, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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