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Olive Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers with onions, celery seed, mustard seed, white pepper, olive oil, alum, and cold vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Olive Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sliced cucumbers in soft water for 3 hours, then drain.

  2. Mix the drained cucumbers with the sliced onions.

Season and pack

  1. Add the olive oil and mix thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the celery seed, mustard seed, and whole white pepper, mixing well.

  3. Pour cold vinegar over the mixture.

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. Celery + mustardtop 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, bulky body of the pickle once soaked and drained.
Onions
Add sharp flavor and aroma that mellows within the brine-like mixture.
Olive oil
Coats the vegetables, adding richness and carrying the spice flavors.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor to the pickle.
Cold vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled vegetables.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers after soaking. Excess water left on the cucumbers dilutes the vinegar and oil mixture and softens the pickle, so they should be drained well before mixing.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, celery, mustard, olive, 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.

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