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Preserve

Cucumbers with Onions

A pickled cucumber and onion relish made with vinegar, salt, cloves, and warm storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cucumbers with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers.

  2. Stick a few cloves into each onion.

  3. Sprinkle the cucumbers and onions with coarse sea salt.

Pickle

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Let them stand in a warm place.

  3. Repeat pouring boiling vinegar over them.

Seal

  1. Once cold, seal the jars with bladders.

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. Cucumber + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  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
Provide the crisp, watery body that the brine softens and flavors.
Onions
Add sharp aroma and sweetness that mellows as they steep in the vinegar.
Boiling vinegar
Supplies acidity that pickles the vegetables and gives them their tang.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cucumbers and onions, helping them stay firm.
Cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma to the onions.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar. The vinegar must be hot enough to soften the vegetables and carry the spices into them, and the pour is repeated so the flavor and acidity penetrate fully. Vinegar that is not hot enough will leave the pickles crisp on the outside but under-flavored.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, 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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