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Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers preserved in oil with onions, mustard seed, pepper, celery seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice cucumbers without peeling and soak in salt for 3 hours.

  2. Drain the cucumbers and rinse in clear water if too salty.

  3. Slice onions and soak in water.

  4. Dissolve alum in hot water.

Combine and cover

  1. Combine cucumbers, onions, alum, mustard seed, ground pepper, celery seed, and olive oil in a bowl.

  2. Mix thoroughly and cover with cold vinegar.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 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 crisp, firm body that the pickle is built around.
White onions
Add sharp, savoury flavour that mellows as the pickle sits.
Olive oil
Carries the spices and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling mixture.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its tang and preserves it.

The step that matters

Rinse the cucumbers after salting. Salt draws water out of cucumbers and makes them firm, but leftover salt will make the finished pickle too salty. Rinsing and tasting lets you control the final seasoning.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, mustard, pepper, celery, olive, 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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