Skip to main content
Baking

Olive Oil Pickles

A pickle made by slicing cucumbers and marinating them in a mixture of olive oil, vinegar, mustard seed, celery seed, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Olive Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cucumbers thinly crosswise without peeling.

Marinate

  1. Mix all ingredients together and pour over the cucumbers.

  2. Let stand overnight.

Jar

  1. Put into jars and seal.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  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, watery body that the brine softens and flavors.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a rounded, mellow richness to the brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine.

The step that matters

Slice cucumbers thinly and evenly. Thin, even slices let the brine penetrate quickly and uniformly. Thick or uneven pieces stay crunchy in some spots and soft in others after standing overnight.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, vinegar, olive, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes