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Cucumber Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and slice cucumbers.

  2. Layer cucumbers with coarse sea salt in a bowl and let sit for a few hours.

  3. Drain excess liquid and rinse cucumbers.

  4. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, and spices; bring to a boil.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers in a jar.

  6. Seal the jar and let it cool before refrigerating.

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. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Swap the dill

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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