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Sweet Pickle Relish

If you have a garden overflowing with cucumbers, this classic relish is a good way to use your bumper crop. You can dice the vegetables in a food processor or by hand. If you opt for the food processor, don’t overprocess them or the relish will lose its chunky texture.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,160 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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By williamssonoma. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,160 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,279 recipes

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

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  3. Cabbagebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, sugar, cider, vinegar, celery, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).