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 ↓
Pickled Cucumbers
Ingredients
Directions
Brine the cucumbers
Wash cucumbers carefully and place them in jars.
Make a weak brine by dissolving a handful of coarse sea salt in 1 ½ gallons of water.
Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and cover; repeat this for three mornings, skimming thoroughly each time.
Scald in vinegar
On the fourth day, heat vinegar in a porcelain kettle and add a piece of alum.
When the vinegar is scalding hot, add cucumbers until covered; do not let them boil, skim off as soon as scalded, and replace with more cucumbers, adding a small piece of alum each time.
After this process, discard the vinegar and replace it with good cider or white wine vinegar.
Spice and jar
Add spices, mustard seeds, and red peppers to the vinegar.
Sort the pickles and place them in stone or glass jars, then pour the hot spiced vinegar over them.
Seal the jars and store them away for later use.
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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Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,281 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together380 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together849 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cucumbers
- Form the pickle itself, with a firm texture that the brine and vinegar gradually change.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine for the first days of curing.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
- Alum
- Helps the cucumbers stay firm during repeated scalding.
- Mustard seeds
- Add pungent, aromatic flavour to the spiced vinegar.
The step that matters
Scalding the cucumbers in vinegar. If the vinegar boils, the cucumbers soften and lose their crispness. Keeping it just below boiling and skimming as soon as they scald preserves firmness while still heating them through.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper):
- Lentilsfits better
- Black-eyed peafits better
- Sesamefits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper. 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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