Name: To Make Yellow Pickles
Ingredients: small, hard white heads of cabbage, quartered; small onions; cucumbers; hot brine; cold vinegar; turmeric; spiced vinegar; spices (in a bag)

Why it works: Cucumber and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,102 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Make Yellow Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the quartered cabbage, onions, and cucumbers in hot brine for 3 to 4 days.
Drain well and place on a coarse, soft cloth in the sun to dry and bleach, turning often for 2 days.
After drying, immerse the vegetables in cold vinegar with a little turmeric for 2 weeks.
Then transfer to spiced vinegar, placing the spices in a bag to maintain appearance.

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.

Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,102 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together722 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + turmerictop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together618 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

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

Cauliflowerfits better
Radishfits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

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