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Dill Pickles

A brine of water, salt, vinegar, and cream of tartar is poured over cucumbers and dill.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Heat the water and salt until dissolved.

  2. Cool the mixture slightly.

  3. Add the vinegar and cream of tartar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers and dill.

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. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + cucumbertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The vegetable being pickled, which takes up the brine's salt and acid as it soaks.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine.
Vinegar
Adds sourness and acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their tang.
Dill
Provides the herbal aroma that defines the flavor of dill pickles.

Swap the dill

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Dillthe original

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