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Dill Relish

A pickle-based relish made with dill pickle, celery seed, Tabasco, vinegar, egg yolks, butter, corn starch, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Dill and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 382 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Dill Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely grind the dill pickle.

  2. In a bowl, mix the ground pickle, celery seed, Tabasco sauce, vinegar, egg yolks, butter, corn starch, and sugar thoroughly.

Cook and finish

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the mixture.

  2. Heat the mixture if the corn starch is not cooked.

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. Dill + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Dill + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Dill + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the relish and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, spoonable texture when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Softens the sharp acidity and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating until the corn starch is cooked. Raw corn starch tastes floury and does not thicken until it is heated enough for its granules to swell and gelatinise. Egg yolks also need gentle heat to thicken without scrambling, so the mixture should be heated only until it thickens.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dill, sauce, vinegar, egg, butter, corn, sugar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dill, sauce, vinegar, egg, butter, corn, sugar. 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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