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Olive Oil Pickles

A cucumber pickle made with olive oil, mustard seeds, salt, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Olive Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cucumbers and place them in a large jar.

Make the pickles

  1. Add the black mustard seed, yellow mustard seed, salt, and olive oil; mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture into jars without packing too tightly.

  3. Fill the jars with cider vinegar.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 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
Provide the crisp body that the brine softens and flavours over time.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma that develops as the seeds soak.
Yellow mustard seed
Contributes milder mustard flavour and a gentle aroma to the brine.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness that coats the cucumbers and mellows the sharp vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives them their tang.

The step that matters

Do not pack the jars too tightly. Cucumbers and seasonings need room for the vinegar to circulate and reach every piece. Tight packing leaves dry pockets that pickle unevenly and can trap air bubbles.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Broccolifits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, olive, cider, 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.

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