Name: Oil Pickles
Ingredients: small cucumbers; coarse sea salt; small onions; mustard seed; celery seed; vinegar; 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

Select small cucumbers, wash and dry them to remove black spots.
Sprinkle cucumbers with plenty of coarse sea salt and let them drain overnight.
In another dish, place small onions (one-fourth the amount of cucumbers) and sprinkle with coarse sea salt, then let drain overnight.
In the morning, mix the cucumbers and onions together with mustard seed, celery seed, vinegar, and olive oil.
Use about 3 tablespoons of olive oil for a 2-quart jar.

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).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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

Swap the onion

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

Lettucefits better
Horseradishfits better
Broccolifits better
Onionthe original

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