Skip to main content
Snack

Sliced Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber and onion salad with vinegar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sliced Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the vegetables

  1. Layer cucumbers and onions in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Let sit overnight.

Dress and jar

  1. Scald the mixture with 1 pint of vinegar and drain in a colander.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix mustard, cayenne pepper, and remaining vinegar.

  3. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and onions, and mix well.

  4. Transfer to airtight 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.

  1. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the bulk and crisp texture of the pickle.
Onions
Add sharp aroma and savory flavor that mellows during the rest.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions, firming them for a crisper pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Mustard
Adds pungent, tangy flavor to the dressing.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle background heat to the dressing.

The step that matters

Scalding the mixture with vinegar. Heat softens cucumbers quickly, so scalding only briefly and draining well helps keep the pickles crisp rather than limp.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

You might also like

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes