Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: cucumbers; coarse sea salt; vinegar; water; grape-vine leaves; small red peppers

Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the cucumbers in brine for 24 hours.
Scald the cucumbers in equal parts vinegar and water in a brass kettle, layering with grape-vine leaves.
Place the cucumbers in jars and pour the hot vinegar and water over them.
Let the jars stand overnight.
Pour the vinegar and water over the cucumbers for three consecutive days.
After three days, pour off the old vinegar and cover the pickles with fresh vinegar.
Add small red peppers to taste.

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.

Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Grape + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,909 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + grapetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + grapetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,589 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).