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Cold Vinegar Pickles, No. L

Pickles made by soaking cucumbers in cold vinegar with spices, dill, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Vinegar Pickles, No. L

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place cucumbers in a stone jar.

  2. Mix in the whole spices and dill.

Make the brine

  1. Dissolve the mustard in a little cold vinegar.

  2. Stir the mustard mixture into the remaining vinegar with salt.

Pickle

  1. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers, cover, and seal tightly.

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 + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp body that the brine flavours and preserves.
Cold vinegar
Acidity that flavours the cucumbers and keeps the pickles preserved.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water and seasons the brine, helping the cucumbers stay firm.
Coleman's mustard
Adds sharp pungency and aroma to the brine.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar tightly. Cucumbers must stay fully submerged in the acidic brine and sealed from air; exposure can let them soften or spoil, so the lid should be closed firmly after pouring.

Swap the dill

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillthe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, 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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