Name: German Sweet Pickles
Ingredients: ripe cucumbers; brine (strong enough to float an egg); vinegar; water; dill; mustard seeds; cloves; cinnamon; sugar

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

German Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and remove seeds from the cucumbers.
Soak cucumbers in brine for 12 hours.
Wash thoroughly, wipe dry, and cut into strips.
Cover cucumbers with a brine made of equal parts vinegar and water, and boil once.
Drain cucumbers and layer them in a jar with dill.
Add mustard seeds, cloves, cinnamon, and a small amount of sugar to the second brine.
Boil the second brine again and pour it over the cucumbers while hot.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together530 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together560 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, egg, vinegar, dill, mustard, cinnamon, sugar):

Tarragonfits better
Allspicefits better
Capersfits better
Clovethe original

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