Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: 250 small pickles; 2 gallons vinegar; 4 ounces salt; 2 ounces white mustard seed; 2 ounces alum; 2 ounces allspice; 2 ounces cloves

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Tie the spices in a cloth and boil them with the vinegar.
Wash the pickles and pack them in a jar.
Pour the hot vinegar over the pickles.
Place a plate on the jar and set it in a cool 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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,829 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 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

Small pickles: Serve as the vegetable base that absorbs the spiced vinegar brine.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
White mustard seed: Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the brine.
Allspice: Contributes warm aromatic spice to the brine.
Cloves: Contributes warm aromatic spice to the brine.

“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.