Why it works: Dill and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,008 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Dill Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the pickles in water overnight and wash them thoroughly.
Layer the barrel
In a barrel, place a layer of dill about 1 inch thick at the bottom.
Layer the pickles three layers deep on top of the dill.
Add another layer of dill.
Repeat the layering of pickles until the barrel is full, leaving space for brine.
Brine and ripen
Mix ½ lb of salt with 1 gallon of water to create the brine.
Dissolve alum in the brine before adding it.
Pour the brine over the pickles.
Store the barrel in a cool place and let the pickles ripen for about four weeks.
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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Dill + eggtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,008 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Large pickles
- Form the main body of the pickles, which soften and flavour as they ripen in the brine.
- Dill
- Adds aromatic flavour that infuses the pickles during fermentation.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cucumbers and creates the brine that preserves them and controls fermentation.
- Alum
- Helps the pickles stay firm and crisp during long brining.
The step that matters
Keeping the pickles submerged in brine. Pickles exposed to air can develop mold and spoil, and brine that is too weak or too strong changes fermentation. Keeping every pickle fully covered with brine protects the batch during the long ripening period.
“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.
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