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Oiled Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber dish preserved in vinegar and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oiled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Mix with salt and let stand covered overnight.

Marinate

  1. In the morning, drain in a colander and cover with vinegar for four hours.

  2. Pour off the vinegar and mix the cucumbers with the oil.

  3. Heat 1 quart of fresh vinegar to boiling and pour it hot over the cucumbers and onions.

  4. Store in airtight jars and let sit for about a week before using.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the dish and provide its crisp, fresh texture.
Onions
Add sharp flavour and aroma that mellow during the long standing.
Vinegar
Acidifies the vegetables, adds tang and helps preserve them.
Table oil
Coats the vegetables, adding richness and moisture to the mix.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, aromatic savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar over the vegetables. The vinegar must be heated to boiling before pouring. Hot vinegar softens and seasons the vegetables more evenly than cold, and the jars need to rest about a week so the flavours can develop and the pickle can set.

Swap the onion

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

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

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