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Salad

Mother's Dill Pickles

A homemade pickle made by layering cucumbers with dill, peppers, and brine.

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 ↓

Mother's Dill Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Examine cucumbers and discard any that are soft at the ends.

  2. Soak cucumbers in water overnight.

  3. Drain cucumbers on a clean board and dry with a clean towel.

Make the brine and pack the jar

  1. Dissolve salt in enough cold water to cover cucumbers.

  2. Optionally, add vinegar to the brine.

  3. Layer dill, cucumbers, and whole peppers in a wooden pail or jar, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  4. Cover with a clean white cloth, then place a plate and a stone on top to keep pickles submerged in brine.

Ferment and maintain

  1. Allow pickles to ferment for 5-6 days if cucumbers are small and kept in a warm place.

  2. Check pickles weekly, removing any scum and replacing the cloth.

  3. If pickles are too salty, wash them and store in a weak saltwater solution with a dash of vinegar.

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. Dill + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp body that is transformed into pickles during fermentation.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and keeps harmful microbes in check while fermentation proceeds.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the brine.
Dill
Contributes the characteristic aromatic flavour of dill pickles.

The step that matters

Keeping pickles fully submerged in brine. Vegetables exposed to air can grow mould and spoil. A weight over a cloth keeps the cucumbers below the brine surface, where the salty, acidic conditions favour lactic acid fermentation over spoilage microbes.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Cabbagefits about as well

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