Name: Oil Pickles
Ingredients: 2 dozen medium cucumbers; mustard seeds; celery seeds; whole pepper seeds; coarse sea salt; 1 quart vinegar; ½ cup olive oil

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 ↓

Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice cucumbers very thin and place them in bottles immediately.
Sprinkle generously with mustard, celery, whole pepper seeds, and a little coarse sea salt.
Pour vinegar and olive oil over the slices, using ½ cup of oil for each quart of vinegar.

Serve

Shake the bottle before serving.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers: Provide the crisp, watery base that the vinegar and oil flavour and season.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that tenderises and preserves the cucumber slices.
Olive oil: Adds fat and richness, and carries the spice flavours through the pickle.
Mustard seeds: Contribute pungent, sharp flavour as they steep in the vinegar and oil.

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

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