Name: Conservation Des Cornichons
Ingredients: fresh pickling cucumbers; coarse sea salt; strong vinegar; peeled and blanched small onions; tarragon sprigs; garlic cloves; long peppercorns; cloves; ginger

Why it works: Clove and ginger 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 ↓

Conservation Des Cornichons

Ingredients

Directions

Brush the cucumbers one by one to remove dirt.
Trim the ends and soak them in fresh water for a few hours.
Boil the strong vinegar.
Drain the cucumbers, dry them, and pack them in jars with onions, tarragon, garlic, peppercorns, and cloves.
Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers and let it cool uncovered.
Seal the jars and let them rest for three days.
After three days, remove the vinegar, boil it again, and pour it back over the cucumbers after it has cooled.
Repeat this process a third time after another three days.

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.

Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Cucumber + tarragontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together274 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,556 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together548 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, onion, tarragon, garlic, clove):

Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Gingerthe original

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