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Olive Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers preserved in olive oil, vinegar, salt, mustard seed, celery seed, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

Make the brine

  1. Mix the salt, mustard seed, olive oil, celery seed, vinegar, and sugar together.

Pickle and can

  1. Pour the mixture over the sliced cucumbers.

  2. Let it stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, can the pickles.

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. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Olive + cucumbertop 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

Sliced cucumbers
The main vegetable that absorbs the brine and becomes pickled.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a fruity richness to the brine.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavor to the brine.

Swap the celery

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

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

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