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Uncooked Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, salt, alum, oil, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Uncooked Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickles

  1. Slice pickles into ¼ inch thick slices.

  2. Pack pickles in quart jars with thinly sliced onions and one hot red pepper per jar.

  3. Add salt and fill jars with water.

  4. Add pulverized alum and let stand overnight.

  5. Drain water and rinse pickles.

Pack and seal

  1. Fill jars with pickles, add olive oil, and fill with sharp vinegar.

  2. Seal the jars.

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. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickles
Form the main body of the jar, supplying crunch once the brine has done its work.
Salt
Draws water out of the pickles and seasons them during the overnight soak.
Pulverized alum
Helps the pickles stay firm and crisp through the brining process.
Sharp vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow as the pickles sit in the brine.

The step that matters

Add pulverized alum and let stand overnight. Alum is used in small amounts because too much makes pickles harsh and bitter. Letting them stand overnight gives it time to firm the pickle texture before the rinse and final packing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive, vinegar. 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.

More pickles recipes

Cucumber 334Mustard 151Green Tomato 141Mixed 133Sweet 85French 56 See all 17 →

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