Name: To Salt Vegetables for Pickling
Ingredients: green beans; cucumbers; green sliced tomatoes; coarse sea salt; water

Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Salt Vegetables for Pickling

Ingredients

Directions

Pack the vegetables in a cask with alternate layers of coarse sea salt, finishing with a layer of salt.
Place a weight on top to keep the vegetables submerged.
Pour a little water over the salt to moisten it.
Cover the cask well and let the vegetables sit for several months.
When ready to use, soak the vegetables in fresh water for 24 hours or more, changing the water once or twice during soaking.

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 + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Green beans + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together95 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Green beans + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together113 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).