Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Pickled Cucumbers
Ingredients
Directions
Brine the cucumbers
Wash cucumbers carefully.
Place cucumbers in jars.
Dissolve a handful of coarse sea salt in 1½ gallons of water to make a weak brine.
Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and cover.
Repeat this for three mornings.
Skim thoroughly each time.
Scald in vinegar
On the fourth day, heat vinegar in a porcelain kettle.
Add a piece of alum to the vinegar.
When the vinegar is scalding hot, add cucumbers until covered.
Do not boil the mixture.
Skim off as soon as scalded.
Replace with more cucumbers, adding a small piece of alum each time.
Discard the vinegar.
Replace it with good cider or white wine vinegar.
Spice and jar
Add spices, mustard seed, and red peppers to the vinegar.
Sort the pickles.
Place them in stone or glass jars.
Pour the hot spiced vinegar over them.
Seal the jars.
Store them away.
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.
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Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,281 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together380 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
-
Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together849 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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, becoming crisp and firm when preserved in brine and vinegar.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the weak brine that softens and preserves them.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
- Alum
- Helps the cucumbers stay firm through the hot scalding stages.
- Mustard seed
- Adds pungent, aromatic flavor to the spiced vinegar.
The step that matters
Do not boil the mixture. Boiling the vinegar with the cucumbers would soften them and drive off flavor, so the vinegar should only be scalding hot, which keeps the pickles firm.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper):
- Lentilsfits better
- Black-eyed peafits better
- Sesamefits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, 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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