Name: Summer Pickles
Ingredients: equal quantities of young onions, sour apples, and fresh cucumbers, thinly sliced; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 4 tablespoons sherry; 4 tablespoons soy sauce; vinegar, to fill the jar

Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Pickles

Ingredients

equal quantities of young onions, sour apples, and fresh cucumbers, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons sherry
4 tablespoons soy sauce
vinegar, to fill the jar

Directions

Prepare

Slice equal quantities of young onions, sour apples, and fresh cucumbers thinly.
Fill an unglazed earthen jar that holds 1 quart with the sliced vegetables.

Season and pickle

Add 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Pour in 4 tablespoons of sherry and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce.
Fill the jar with vinegar and cover it tightly until needed.

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.

Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together395 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Young onions: Provide the main savoury vegetable bulk and a sharp, aromatic flavour.
Sour apples: Add tartness and a crisp texture that brightens the pickle.
Fresh cucumbers: Contribute crisp texture and cool, fresh bulk to the jar.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the vegetables and seasons the pickle.
Vinegar: Provides acidity that preserves the vegetables and sharpens the flavour.

Swap the apple

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

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Plumfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, pepper, sherry, sauce, 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.