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Summer Pickles for Present Use

A quick pickle of onions, apples, and cucumbers seasoned with salt, cayenne, soy sauce, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Pickles for Present Use

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the young onions, sour apples, and fresh cucumbers thinly.

  2. Fill a stone jar with the sliced vegetables.

Pickle

  1. Add the coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper to the jar.

  2. Pour in the soy sauce and enough vinegar to fill the jar.

  3. Cover the jar closely until ready to use.

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. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Young onions
Provide the main vegetable bulk and a sharp, savoury flavour once pickled.
Sour apples
Add natural tartness and a crisp texture to the pickling mixture.
Fresh cucumbers
Contribute crunch and moisture that the brine softens and flavours.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the vegetables and seasons the pickles.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their tang.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, pepper, sauce, 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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