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Salad

Sliced Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber and onion salad with white pepper, mustard, turmeric, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,279 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sliced Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let sit for a few hours.

  3. Place in a colander and press out all the water.

Make and cook the pickle

  1. In a bowl, mix the white pepper, mustard, turmeric powder, and sugar.

  2. Combine the mixture with the cucumbers and onions.

  3. Add enough vinegar to cover the vegetables.

  4. Cook for 30 minutes.

Jar

  1. Transfer to glass jars and seal.

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. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 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. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  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
Provide the crisp, watery bulk of the salad that the brine flavours.
Onions
Add sharpness and aroma that mellow during cooking and pickling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the vegetables, preserving them and giving the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Turmeric powder
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild, earthy flavour.
Mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that deepens the pickling brine.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water. Salting draws water out of cucumbers and onions; if they are not well drained, excess liquid dilutes the vinegar and leaves the salad soggy and weakly seasoned.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, mustard, turmeric, sugar, 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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