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French Pickle

A pickled cucumber and onion relish seasoned with mustard, celery seed, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

French Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Scatter the salt over them and let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the water.

Make the pickles

  1. Add the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and celery seed.

  2. Mix thoroughly and transfer to jars.

  3. Store in a dark 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. 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable; salting draws out water so the pickles stay crisp rather than soggy.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions through osmosis, firming them and seasoning the pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Olive oil
Adds fat and body, coating the vegetables and carrying flavour.
Mixed mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that complements the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt pulls water out of the cucumbers and onions. Draining off that liquid, and not returning it to the jars, keeps the pickles crisp and stops the brine from being diluted and the vegetables from going soft.

Swap the onion

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

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

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