Name: Pickled Cucumbers
Ingredients: 1 gallon vinegar; 1 tablespoon cloves; 2 tablespoons allspice; 1 tablespoon mace; 1 tablespoon mustard; 1 piece ginger root, size of a walnut; 1 lump alum, size of a walnut; 2 green peppers

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Make a brine strong enough to float an egg and pour it over the pickles while boiling hot.
Let the pickles stand for 24 hours.
Remove the pickles, wipe them with a dry cloth, and place them in cold vinegar.
In a pot, combine vinegar, cloves, allspice, mace, mustard, ginger root, alum, and green peppers.
Heat the mixture until it is scalding but do not let it boil.
Pour the hot mixture into jars.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, ginger, walnut, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

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