Name: Cucumbee Pickles
Ingredients: 1 gallon water; 1 teacup salt; 1 walnut-sized piece of alum; cold vinegar; pieces of horseradish

Why it works: Walnut and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 259 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cucumbee Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the water and add salt and alum, skimming the surface for three mornings in a row.
Drain the mixture and soak the cucumbers in clear cold water for half a day.
Place the cucumbers in cold vinegar and add pieces of horseradish to prevent mold.

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.

Walnut + horseradishtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together259 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,769 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).