Name: To Pickle Cucumbers
Ingredients: Cucumbers; Coarse sea salt; Cabbage leaves; Vinegar; 2 Lemons; Fresh ginger; Cloves

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Soak cucumbers in a mixture of salt and water for nine days.
Remove cucumbers and wrap them in cabbage leaves over a fire.
Submerge cucumbers in cold water for three days, changing the water frequently.
Scald and skim the vinegar, then pour it over the cucumbers while hot.
Boil the vinegar mixture nine or ten times until cucumbers are green and transparent.
Prepare new strong vinegar, boil it with two lemons, fresh ginger, and cloves in a bag.
Skim the mixture and pour it over the cucumbers.

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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together722 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together545 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, vinegar, ginger, clove):

Limefits better
Cherryfits about as well
Avocadofits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, vinegar, ginger, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.