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Sliced Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish made with salt, vinegar, oil, mustard seeds, and celery seed, left to mature for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sliced Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cucumbers

  1. Slice the cucumbers and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

Dress and jar

  1. Drain off the liquid and place the cucumbers in a stone jar.

  2. In a bowl, mix vinegar, sweet oil, white mustard seed, black mustard seed, and celery seed.

  3. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and seal the jar.

Rest

  1. Let the pickles sit for 3 to 4 weeks before using.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm body of the pickle that absorbs the dressing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming their texture and seasoning them.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that carries the mustard and celery seed flavors through the dressing.
Black mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that mellows as the pickles rest.

The step that matters

Salting overnight and draining off the liquid. Salt pulls water out of the sliced cucumbers by osmosis. Draining that liquid before jarring keeps the cucumbers firm and stops the dressing from being diluted, so they stay crisp rather than soft.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard. 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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