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DELicIousS PiCKLE

A cucumber pickle made with salt, vinegar, mustard seed, and olive oil, stored for three months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

DELicIousS PiCKLE

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak small cucumbers overnight in salt water.

  2. In the morning, drain the cucumbers.

Pickle and store

  1. In a bowl, combine every cup of cold vinegar with half a cup of white mustard seed and half a cup of pure olive oil.

  2. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers in bottles and seal them.

  3. Store the pickles for three months before opening.

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.

  1. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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 cucumbers
Provide the main vegetable that softens and absorbs the pickling brine.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that develops as the pickles stand.
Pure olive oil
Adds fat and a mellow richness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Sealing the bottles after pouring the mixture over the cucumbers. The cucumbers must be fully submerged in the vinegar mixture and sealed airtight so the acid can preserve them and the flavours can blend over the long rest.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, olive):

  1. Lettucefits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Radishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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