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Preserve

Cold Pickles

A vinegar-based pickled vegetable mix with garlic, tarragon, olive oil, nasturtium seeds, cherries, onions, carrots, radish pods, and cornichons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cold Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Season the vinegar with garlic, tarragon, and olive oil.

  2. Put the mixture into a glass jar and keep it well covered.

  3. Add nasturtium seeds, cherries, onions, carrots, radish pods, and cornichons.

  4. Keep the jar closed; the pickles will last as long as if they were boiled.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Garlic + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickling liquid.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a mellow richness to the seasoned pickling liquid.
Garlic
Adds a pungent aroma that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Keep the jar well covered and closed. Vinegar's acidity preserves the vegetables only while the jar is sealed. Air exposure lets spoilage microbes grow and softens or dulls the pickles.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, garlic, tarragon, olive, onion, carrot, radish):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, garlic, tarragon, olive, onion, carrot, 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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