Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: small fresh cucumbers; strong brine; cider vinegar; sugar; cinnamon bark; small red pepper

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Place small fresh cucumbers in strong brine and let them soak for 24 hours.
Drain the cucumbers well and pack them closely into quart jars.
In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon bark to taste, adding one small red pepper for each quart.
Heat the mixture until it's almost boiling, then pour it over the pickles each day for three days, sealing the jars tightly each time.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Cucumber + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together874 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Cucumberthe original
Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.