Name: Of Preserving
Ingredients: pretty large cucumbers; best white wine vinegar; spices of your choice

Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Of Preserving

Ingredients

pretty large cucumbers
best white wine vinegar
spices of your choice

Directions

Pick cucumbers before they grow hard.
Boil white wine vinegar with your chosen spices.
Place cucumbers in the vinegar mixture.
Seal in a bottle and store.
They will be ready to use in eight days.

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.

Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,776 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cucumber + white winetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together273 recipes

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