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Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers with onions and mustard seeds preserved in olive oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  1. Slice the cucumbers and let them stand in salt water for a few hours. Drain the cucumbers.

Assemble

  1. In a large jar, layer the cucumbers, onions, and seeds.

  2. Pour olive oil over the mixture until covered.

  3. Add vinegar to cover completely.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the pickle and provide its crisp, firm texture.
Onions
Add sharp, savoury flavour and some sweetness as they soften in the jar.
Black mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent bite and aroma.
White mustard seed
Adds a milder, tangy bite and aroma.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, herbal aroma that rounds out the flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness and seals the mixture from air.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Soaking the sliced cucumbers in salt water. Salt draws water out of the cucumber cells by osmosis. Soaking them first and then draining removes excess moisture, so the pickles stay firmer in the jar rather than becoming soft and watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, celery, olive, 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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