Name: Martino Pickles
Ingredients: Martinoes (quantity as needed); Coarse sea salt (for brine); Weak vinegar (enough to boil martinoes); Allspice (to taste); Horseradish (to taste); Black pepper (to taste); Onions (sliced, quantity as needed)

Why it works: Allspice and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 654 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Martino Pickles

Ingredients

Martinoes (quantity as needed)
Coarse sea salt (for brine)
Weak vinegar (enough to boil martinoes)
Allspice (to taste)
Horseradish (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)
Onions (sliced, quantity as needed)

Directions

Soak martinoes in a brine for 1 week.
Boil martinoes gently in weak vinegar until tender.
Scald allspice, horseradish, and black pepper.
Layer sliced onions between the martinoes in a jar.
Pour the hot vinegar over the martinoes and onions.
Let the pickles sit for 6 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.

Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together654 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,784 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,646 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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 onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, allspice, horseradish, pepper):

Mustardfits better
Radishfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

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