Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: cucumbers; water; coarse sea salt; ginger; horseradish; pepper pods; cider vinegar

Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the cucumbers with brine made of water and salt, strong enough to float an egg, for 24 hours.
Wash the cucumbers in clear water and dry them.
Place some cucumbers in a jar and add ginger, horseradish, and pepper pods.
Add more cucumbers and spices until the jar is full.
Boil cider vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers.
Cover the jar tightly.

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.

Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together640 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together973 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 ginger

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

Dillfits better
Tarragonfits better
Allspicefits better
Gingerthe original

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