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Summer Pickles

A quick pickled relish of onions, apples, cucumbers, salt, cayenne, sherry, soy sauce, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Summer Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice equal quantities of young onions, sour apples, and fresh cucumbers.

  2. Fill an unglazed earthen jar that holds 1 quart with the sliced vegetables.

Season and cover

  1. Add 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour in 4 tablespoons of sherry and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce.

  3. Fill the jar with vinegar and cover it tightly until needed.

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. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Young onions
Provide the main vegetable bulk and a sharp, savoury flavour once pickled.
Sour apples
Add tartness and crisp texture that balances the salt and spice.
Fresh cucumbers
Contribute crunch and fresh, watery bulk to the pickle.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and salty umami to the liquid.
Vinegar
Acidifies and preserves the vegetables, giving the pickle its sour bite.

The step that matters

Fill the jar with vinegar and cover it tightly. The vinegar must fully cover the sliced vegetables so none are exposed to air, which could let spoilage organisms grow. A tight cover keeps the jar sealed while the flavours develop.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cucumber, pepper, sherry, sauce, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, pepper, sherry, sauce, 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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