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Pickled Onions and Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber and onion relish preserved in vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion 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 ↓

Pickled Onions and Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Cut them into thick crosswise slices.

  3. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt.

  4. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  5. Drain the vegetables.

Pickle

  1. Place them in a jar.

  2. Pour enough boiling vinegar over the vegetables to cover them.

  3. Keep the jar in a warm place for 12 to 18 hours.

  4. Drain off the vinegar.

  5. Heat it again.

  6. Pour it over the vegetables until they are bright green.

  7. Add a little red pepper.

  8. Add a pinch of sugar during the last boiling.

  9. Cover the jar tightly.

  10. Store it in a cool place.

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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, which the brine penetrates over time.
Onions
Add sharp, aromatic flavour that mellows during pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the slices, firming them and preparing them to absorb the vinegar.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the vegetables.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the vegetables after salting. Salt draws out moisture; the slices must be drained well so the vinegar is not diluted and the pickle stays crisp rather than watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, sugar. 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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