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Dill Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using rain water, salt, vinegar, alum, dill, grape leaves, and green grapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dill Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Boil the rain water, salt, vinegar, and alum, then let it cool.

Pack the jar

  1. Layer cucumbers, dill, grape leaves, and green grapes in a jar.

  2. Repeat layers until the jar is full.

  3. Pour the cooled liquid over the layers, adding dill on top.

  4. Cover the jar and place a weight on top to keep the pickles submerged.

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 + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Vinegar + dilltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + grapetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves, absorbing the brine flavor and turning crisp-tender as they cure.
Salt
Draws out water and seasons the brine, helping preserve the cucumbers and shape their texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sours the brine and helps keep the pickles preserved.
Dill
Contributes the characteristic aromatic flavor of dill pickles.
Grape leaves
Contain tannins that help the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during brining.

The step that matters

Keep the pickles submerged. Cucumbers exposed to air above the brine can soften and grow mold. A weight keeps every piece under the liquid, where the salty, acidic brine preserves them and the fermentation or curing stays even.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cucumber, dill. 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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