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Pickled Onions and Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber and onion mixture preserved in vinegar with salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion 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 ↓

Pickled Onions and Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Peel the cucumbers and onions, then cut them into thick crosswise slices.

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

  3. Drain the vegetables and place them in a jar.

Pickle

  1. Pour enough boiling vinegar over to cover the vegetables.

  2. Keep the jar in a warm place for 12 to 18 hours.

  3. Drain off the vinegar, heat it again, and pour it over the vegetables until they are bright green.

  4. Add a little red pepper and a speck of sugar during the last boiling.

  5. Cover tightly and store in a cool place.

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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Their firm flesh holds its crunch through salting and hot vinegar, giving the pickle its body.
Onions
They add pungency that mellows during pickling and a sharp, savoury bite.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and making room for vinegar to penetrate.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sour flavour.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining and re-heating the vinegar. Pouring the vinegar back over the vegetables and reheating it keeps the pickle bright green, while the warm-place rest lets the vinegar work through the slices. Heating the vinegar only once would leave the vegetables duller and less fully pickled.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, sugar. 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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