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Onions, Pickled, with Cucumbers

Pickled onions and cucumbers preserved in vinegar with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onions, Pickled, with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onion and cucumbers, removing the seeds from the cucumbers.

  2. Place the slices in a colander and sprinkle salt over them.

  3. Let the salted slices drain for 24 hours.

Pickle

  1. Transfer the slices to a large earthen jar and pour enough boiling vinegar over them to cover.

  2. Tie a bladder over the jar and place it near the fire.

  3. Boil the vinegar daily.

  4. Pour the boiled vinegar over the pickles, covering the jar immediately to retain steam.

  5. Repeat the boiling and pouring until the cucumbers are green, adding 1 ounce of whole pepper for every quart of vinegar during the last boiling.

Store

  1. Store the pickles in a cool, dry place.

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. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Remain firm and crisp during pickling, and turn green as the repeated boiling proceeds.
Onion
Adds sharp flavour that mellows as it soaks in the vinegar.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickles their tang.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the sliced vegetables during the long drain, leaving them less watery.
Whole pepper
Adds aroma and spice to the vinegar during the final boiling.

The step that matters

Draining the salted slices for 24 hours. Salt draws moisture out of the cucumber and onion by osmosis. If the slices are not drained long enough, excess water dilutes the vinegar and leaves the pickles soft rather than crisp.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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