Name: To Pickle Cucumbers and Gherkins
Ingredients: small cucumbers; strong brine; a small bit of alum; northern cider vinegar; cloves; allspice; mustard; cinnamon

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers and Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Select a sufficient quantity of small cucumbers and place them in a stone pot.
Pour strong brine over the cucumbers and add a small bit of alum to secure the color.
Let them stand for one week.
After a week, exchange the brine for clear water and let them remain for two to three days.
Boil the northern cider vinegar and, when nearly cool, pour it over the cucumbers after turning off the water.
Add cloves, allspice, mustard, and cinnamon boiled in the vinegar for flavor.
Seal the jar tightly and the pickles will keep for a year.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, cinnamon):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Radishfits about as well
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.