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Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber dish made with cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, celery, vinegar, water, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and celery finely.

  2. Soak in mild salt water overnight.

  3. Drain the water.

Cook and jar

  1. Boil vinegar, water, and sugar for 15 minutes.

  2. Add chopped vegetables to the boiling mixture and bring to a boil.

  3. Pack into jars and add mixed spices.

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 + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a crisp, fresh texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sour flavor.
Green tomatoes
Add bulk and tartness, absorbing the brine flavors as they cook.

The step that matters

Soak in mild salt water overnight. Salting draws water out of the chopped vegetables through osmosis, which firms them and helps them stay crisp rather than turning soft in the hot vinegar syrup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, tomato, celery, vinegar, 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.

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