Name: Pickled Cucumbers
Ingredients: 1 gallon best cider vinegar; 1 teacup coarse sea salt; 2 red peppers, finely chopped; ¼ pound white mustard seed; ¼ ounce ginger root; 1 piece of alum the size of a butternut; 1 teacup horse-radish root, not grated

Why it works: Mustard and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

1 gallon best cider vinegar
1 teacup coarse sea salt
2 red peppers, finely chopped
¼ pound white mustard seed
¼ ounce ginger root
1 piece of alum the size of a butternut
1 teacup horse-radish root, not grated

Directions

Prepare

Wash and wipe the cucumbers.
Place the cucumbers in a stone jar.

Make the brine

In a pot, combine the vinegar, salt, red peppers, mustard seed, ginger root, alum, and horseradish root.
Bring the mixture to a boil.

Pickle

Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers.
Cover the jar closely.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + butternuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Ginger + radishtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together172 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and sharpens the flavour.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture and seasons the brine, helping keep the cucumbers firm.
White mustard seed: Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that mellows during pickling.
Horse-radish root: Adds a sharp, pungent heat that infuses into the brine.
Ginger root: Adds a warm, aromatic spice to the brine.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the cucumbers. The brine must be at a full boil when poured so it is hot enough to begin softening and flavouring the cucumbers and to help seal the jar against spoilage. Cooling it first weakens this effect.

Swap the butternut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, ginger, horse, radish):

Beansfits better
Sesamefits better
Butternutthe original
Lentilsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, ginger, horse, radish. 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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Pickled Cucumbers