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Sliced Cucumbers and Onions

A pickled relish of sliced cucumbers and onions seasoned with salt, vinegar, pepper, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sliced Cucumbers and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Slice cucumbers into ¼ inch thick slices and thinly slice the onions.

  2. Layer the cucumbers and onions in a dish and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover with another dish and let sit for 24 hours.

  4. Drain in a colander, then transfer to a large jar.

Pickle in vinegar

  1. Pour boiled vinegar over the vegetables for three consecutive days.

  2. On the last day, add white pepper and ginger to the boiling vinegar, then pour it over the cucumbers and onions while hot.

  3. Cover the jar tightly once cooled.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, bulky body of the relish that holds up to pickling.
Onions
Add sharp, savoury flavour that mellows as the relish pickles.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions so they stay crisp in the vinegar.
Boiled vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the vegetables.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that carries into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting for 24 hours. Salt draws out excess water through osmosis. Draining well before adding vinegar keeps the vegetables crisp and stops the brine from being diluted.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, vinegar, ginger. 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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