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Cut Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber and onion relish seasoned with mace, celery seed, mustard, vinegar, and sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cut Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let sit for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the salt off and layer cucumbers, onions, and spices in a jar.

Pickle and serve

  1. Fill the jar with cold vinegar and cover with sweet oil.

  2. Shake the jar well to ensure the vinegar soaks through.

  3. After 24 hours, stir well before serving.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and stay crisp-textured once salted and drained.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions, firming them before they are pickled.
Cold vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Onions
Add sharpness and aroma that mellow as they sit in the brine.

The step that matters

Draining the salt off before layering. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions. Draining and rinsing off the excess keeps the pickle from tasting overly salty, while the vegetables stay firm.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

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